About ACSC
The Australian Centre for Sustainable Catchments (ACSC) is unique in Australia in that it seamlessly combines world leading research and development in climate and meteorological science with engineering, remote sensing and surveying, hydrological modelling, economic modelling, catchment-scale modelling and rural research. No other agency in Australia provides such integrated systems research and development in these fields.
ACSC was formed in 2005 as a small semi-autonomous research centre linked to the University of Southern Queensland in Toowoomba, Queensland. Since 2005, its external income has increased rapidly and now utilises the expertise of 34 university and core ACSC staff across all disciplines. This approach has led to major contract research or consultancy projects involving:
- leading insurance and reinsurance agencies
- major catchment industries (e.g. one of the worlds’ largest irrigated cotton enterprises)
- leading mining and gas companies
- Queensland’s largest rural industry agency (QFF)
- numerous federal research contracts through the ‘Managing Climate Variability Program’ and other federal departments
- Queensland and New South Wales State Government research programs and industry reviews, such as the Snowy River Hydroelectricity Program
- local and regional council contract research (e.g. climate and weather risk assessment for the Toowoomba Regional Council)
- contract research in counties such as India on aspects related to farm irrigation, water supply and climate variability
- the major provision of contracted reports to Queensland Water Infrastructure Ltd regarding weather-climate risk assessment and projections in regards to tactical planning needs.
Since 2007, Dr Roger Stone has led ACSC as Director and now heads a team comprising world leading researchers in applied research covering hydrology/flooding (Dr Ian Brodie; Dr Helen Fairweather), remote sensing and spatial modelling (Drs Kevin McDougall and Armando Apan), soil systems (Dr Chuxia Lin), resource economics (Dr Shahbaz Mushtaq), forestry systems (Dr Tek Maraseni, land use systems (Dr Geoff Cockfield), and climate and meteorological science (Drs Roger Stone and Joachim Ribbe). Additionally, ACSC has captured the capability of Mr Torben Marcussen, arguably one of the foremost IT specialists in Australia.
ACSC continues to publish in world-class scientific and technical journals as well as providing focussed, applied research, review and assessment. Through Dr Stone, ACSC currently contributes to major UN technical programs, including the provision of recommendations regarding risk management involving extreme weather systems globally.
Through USQ, ACSC is now spearheading a major international and national cooperative program (CRC) in climate and weather risk management for industry, including insurance and finance. ACSC has forged close links with major research and operational agencies, such as: the UKMO (Hadley Centre), the US National Center for Atmospheric Research, (Boulder, Colorado), the International Research Institute for Climate and Society (IRI, Columbia University), and the Australian Bureau of Meteorology and other Australian universities.
The research efforts of the ACSC are encapsulated in the following four research groups: