There is a wealth of data available to marine scientists to study the environment. These include measurements made from samples collected by boats, data from marine moorings, buoys and unmanned vessels as well as satellite data. For satellite data, this is now available at very high resolution so that a range of parameters and the intricate details of these in rivers, estuaries and the coast can be easily seen from space. Having all of these different sources of data available, makes it hard to analyse in a coherent, consistent and easily findable format. Data Cubes have been invented which are gridded and stacked arrays of different data sets, that can be interrogated easily and efficiently by scientists. The scientific organisation CSIRO in Australia has developed open data cubes, called AquaWatch Data Integration and Analysis System or ADIAS, that allows multiple users to easily interact with large archives of data. Through this platform, computer code, known as machine learning, can be used to turn some of the data sets into water quality parameters, to allow the assessment of whether coastal water is 'clean' or 'poor' quality. In both the western English Channel and eastern Australia, periodic flooding as a result of heavy rainfall is becoming more frequent. This is because the heating of inland water and the sea is causing more evapo-transpiration which results in high rainfall and then flooding. These flooding events can carry agricultural fertilisers, sewage effluent and, in some locations, heavy metals from mining tailing ponds from the rivers to the coast. This poses a risk to human health and to the environment through the deposition of high nutrients, suspended material, viruses and bacteria to the coast. This in turn can be deleterious to Seagrass beds and mud flats are important areas for depositing and drawing down CO2 from the atmosphere. These flooding events can be harmful to both seagrass beds and mud flats by blocking light that is normally available to seagrasses to photosynthesize and by introducing toxic material that disrupt mud flats. The project will measure the effect of flooding on seagrass beds and mud flats in Plymouth Sound, UK and the Fitzeroy River and adjacent coast of Australia. It will also provide maps of areas that are not effected by flooding to allow conservation groups to regenerate Seagrass beds. The information generated by the project will be a freely available to end-users to help the monitoring and management of water quality in the Plymouth Sound catchment. The project data and results will be showcased to interested parties through an end of project stakeholder event. The following groups will be invited to the event: Marine managers (FSA, DEFRA, CEFAS,), Fishery and Shellfishery end users (regional IFCA groups, OS-UK), Marine policy makers (DG-ENV, DG-MARE, OSPAR, ICES, OSPAR ICG COBAM Pelagic Habitats Expert Group), tourism and recreation groups (SAS, Sailing clubs, local anglers, SUP clubs) and Wildlife conservation and Environmental protection groups (UK Wildlife Trusts). Due to Brexit, collaboration with other European scientists is now restricted due to lack of funds. This project will facilitate knowledge and technology exchange between UK and Australia, now that EU collaboration is reduced.

Abstracts are not currently available in GtR for all funded research. This is normally because the abstract was not required at the time of proposal submission, but may be because it included sensitive information such as personal details.

The WSN group in the E&EE department at the University of Leeds has published techniques to progress and enhance the performance of localization systems. These techniques have been published in top quality international journals. The group would like to extend these ideas and realize these techniques to offer enhancement to all localization systems. The Australia China Research Centre for Wireless communications has also been very active on the world stage in developing novel positioning and localization solutions. Building a collaboration between the two groups will benefit UK, European and Austrialian industries and enhance academic standing. The theoretical ideas will be demonstrated and optimised for practical systems.

Australia has experienced over the past 18 months rainfall of a scale and intensity that is unprecedented in recorded history. This rainfall event has now abruptly come to an end, and access to large parts of the Australian interior has just become possible The access to the Australian interior at a time of unprecedented ecological boom, when rare mass flowering and breeding events occur, presents us with a unique research opportunity. However, we need to act fast to initiate monitoring of this rapidly unfolding event or we will miss the first breeding season following the unusual wet period, and we will lose an opportunity to collect data at this period, against which subsequent monitoring during more normal, drier periods can be compared. We plan to study the impacts of this rare event on the breeding distribution and abundance of nomadic terrestrial birds, i.e. those species that have no fixed breeding range but instead follow the availability of resources around the landscape, breeding whenever good conditions arise. Australia's nomadic terrestrial land-birds make up the majority of terrestrial nomadic species, in Australia and elsewhere around the world. With no previous census of the impacts of these types of extreme climatic fluctuations on the terrestrial species across climatic and habitat gradients, and with no plans in place to monitor this year's rapidly progressing events, we are in danger of missing out on an opportunity to study an unique and unfolding natural event of global importance; one that could prove invaluable in projecting the impacts of future climate change on ecosystems. Because of the nature of Australia's climate, there is a steep gradient from wet to dry environments as you progress inland from the coast, such that you can cover large climatic gradients in relatively short distances. We propose a series of long-distance (1000km) transects to study the impacts of the recent climate events on the breeding, distribution and abundance of terrestrial bird species into the central and southern interior regions of Australia, normally the driest places in the continent. By selecting a series of transects covering climatic and environmental gradients from the interior towards the coastal margins, we will sample across a large space-for-time replacement gradient. The first transects need to be initiated urgently to monitor species distributions during this period of abundant water. If this monitoring is delayed even by a couple more months, then it is likely that we will miss this important event, and lose an important baseline dataset against which to compare subsequent changes. It is imperative that we commence the work shortly, as some species (such as black-tailed native hen) will begin to breed soon after the rains have finished whereas honeyeaters, the most diverse passerine bird group in Australia as well as many raptors such as letter-winged kites will now be starting to set up territories for breeding in the spring (which occurs in about 6 weeks time). Our main objectives are: To collect point abundance data for terrestrial bird species along a series of transects spanning climatic and habitat gradients during a period of unprecedented water availability, to relate short-term species occurrence data to climatic and environmental variables. To put in place a census strategy that can be repeated in the future to detect the impacts of climatic changes on both short- and long-term population changes in nomadic species To analyse and publish these results quickly to (i) highlight the magnitude of the ecological impacts of this climatic events and (ii) provide the first ever distribution maps and habitat association models for nomadic species in an ecological boom time. We anticipate that this pilot work will lead to follow-on funding to study the longer term impacts of these climatic boom-bust cycles on the distribution and abundance of nomadic and mobile species.

Australia