2011 Strategic Roadmap for Australian Research Infrastructure

Emerging trends in research, consideration of Capability areas identified in the
previous Roadmaps and underpinning requirements needed to support excellent
research across relevant disciplines are discussed in this chapter.
Recently released national frameworks and plans for climate 12 , marine 13 , earth
system science 14 , cities 15 , geoscience 16 and environmental information 17 provided
useful guidance to the EWG on priorities in these domains. However, in other
areas, broader research community input is needed to refine gap analyses and
develop recommendations on priority investments.
Section A: Future research directions
In identifying key research areas as ongoing or new priorities, the EWG
considered the fields in which Australia already has international standing and took
into account community agreement around priority research directions. The key
areas for future research are as follows:
the global ocean and the oceanic regions surrounding Australia, as critical
to detecting and attributing climate change and improving projections of
the changes and their impacts;
the role of the Antarctic cryosphere in the earth system and the changes
resulting from global warming;
ecosystem research into Australia’s coastal zone, to inform sustainable
development and improved understanding of the complex set of
ecosystem – urban – industrial interactions;
water resources (including groundwater) and management of these
resources;
our understanding of the terrestrial environment and biogeochemical
cycles (e.g. water, carbon, nutrients) with a focus on Australian soils given
their relevance to sustainable agriculture, carbon sequestration, forest
production and water resource management;
knowledge of Australia’s biodiversity, including the identity and names of
organisms, their genetic diversity, the relationships between organisms,
and their functional role in ecosystems;
geosciences, as they provide insight into areas such as understanding
past climate patterns, possible ways to reduce adverse impacts of climate
change, natural hazards and supporting the sustainable use of minerals,
energy and groundwater resources;
maintaining and building Australia’s capability in palaeoclimate research
as an important contribution to global climate science, recognising that the
Australian Antarctic Territory is likely to contain the world’s oldest and
deepest ice;
12
http://www.climatechange.gov.au/government/initiatives/~/media/publications/science/national-framework-cc-science.ashx
13
http://www.opsag.org/pdf/opsag-marine-nation-01.pdf
14
http://www.science.org.au/natcoms/nc-ess/documents/ess-report2010.pdf
15
http://www.infrastructure.gov.au/infrastructure/mcu/urbanpolicy/index.aspx
16
http://www.science.org.au/events/thinktank/thinktank2010/documents/thinktankproceedings.pdf
17
http://www.environment.gov.au/npei/index.html
12