Spatio-temporal analysis of natural resources

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Understanding the spatial and temporal dynamics of the natural world is a fundamental prerequisite to making informed decisions about the sustainable management of interacting natural and human systems. Hence the spatio-temporal analysis group has underpinned studies by the Fenner School and research institutions around the world into biodiversity assessment, agricultural planning, integrated catchment modelling, water resources management, carbon accounting and assessment of the impacts of projected climate change.

These studies have direct requirements for spatially distributed climate and topographic data, at relatively fine spatial resolution. Translating, or downscaling, broad scale climate change scenarios to spatial scales sufficiently fine to be applicable to real management systems has been a particular contribution of these methods. A guiding principle of the group is to aim to develop and apply techniques that explicitly recognise fundamental driving processes at their appropriate temporal and spatial scales.