USQ to conduct innovative climate change project in India

USQ's Professor Roger Stone, Dr Shirley Reushle and Professor Jim Taylor will conduct an innovative virtual project in India

USQ academics will conduct a ‘world first’ web-based project in India with the aim of better preparing 600 million farmers in the region for extremes in climate variability and climate change.

USQ, along with the Government of India’s India Meteorological Department, ANGR Agricultural University and Tamil Nadu University, was recently granted the $72,000 (US) project from the Asia Pacific Network for Global Change Research (APN) through the competitive external grants scheme CAPaBLE.

Project leader and climatologist at USQ’s Australian Centre for Sustainable Catchments (ACSC), Professor Roger Stone, said the project would be an innovative and exciting new international venture for the University.

'A pilot study and series of workshops will be conducted to develop ways of connecting USQ’s innovative approach in ‘eLearning’ education with sustainable agricultural production under climate variability and climate change in India,' Professor Stone said.

'This will create virtual discussion support and decision support systems through interactive web-based portals, to then be used to transmit and disseminate vital climate information at a range of time scales to farmers and agricultural extension specialists.'

Professor Stone and USQ’s Digital Futures Institute founder, Professor Jim Taylor presented this new ‘eLearning’ approach to the UN World Meteorological Organisation during a workshop in Toowoomba last year.

A major component of the underlying research for this project will be managed by Dr Shirley Reushle, from the Australian Digital Futures Institute, with specialist input from USQ’s Dr Lindy McKeown.

Additionally, Mr Torben Marcussen from the ACSC will provide specialist computer programming input.

Professor Stone said the United Nations’ Commission for Agricultural Meteorology in Geneva, at a number of its specialist meetings over the past year, had provided strong support for this new approach and project’s initiation and will watch the outcomes of this pilot project with keen interest in terms of its potential application worldwide.

'I sense that many world organisations in addition to the UN will be viewing the outputs and outcomes of this pilot study with great interest as they seek new methods to help agricultural communities better prepare for extremes of climate variability and change in the future,' Professor Stone said.

'There is huge interest in seeking new ways to better prepare for global famines and food shortages as populations rise, demands for food production increase and natural disasters continue to increase and produce wide-spread devastation.

'The question is; how do you help better prepare 600 million farmers in a region for extremes in climate variability and climate change, even when breakthroughs in science and understanding occur?

'This new approach, combining interactive web-based ‘discussion support’ linking to new science, may help provide some answers to this major world issue.'

Contact Details:
Madeleine Tiller, USQ Media, +61 7 4631 1163, 0400 025 429