Professor Matthias Boer from Western Sydney University’s Hawkesbury Institute for the Environment will head the NSW Bushfire and Natural Hazards Research Centre, a new $8 million collaborative research centre involving researchers from six universities funded by the NSW Department of Planning and Environment. Using new… Read More »Western Sydney University to lead NSW Bushfire and Natural Hazards Research Centre
At the height of the last drought in late 2019, when eastern Australia was suffering through its hottest and driest year on record, environmental scientist, Dr Rachael Nolan, and her colleagues at Western went to see how the eucalypt forests near Armidale in New South… Read More »Drought detectives examine how Australian forests will cope with a hot, dry and fiery future
A Western Sydney University Research Fellow has described the specific set of environmental conditions that led to Australia’s bushfire emergency. Dr Rachael Nolan is a member of the Fire Research Group within the Hawkesbury Institute for the Environment at Western Sydney University. Her research is focused on… Read More »Extreme conditions created a ‘perfect storm’ for catastrophic fires
The drought provided the conditions necessary for the record-breaking Black Summer fires. Normally wet parts of the landscape, such as gullies and rainforests, which usually act as natural barriers to fire, also dried out and burned in 2019/20. Dr Rachael Nolan – Hawkesbury Institute for… Read More »World-first research announced into the role rainforests play in mitigating bushfire disasters
An unprecedented outbreak of large, intense fires stretched from the mid-north coast of New South Wales into central Queensland. Researchers at Western Sydney University’s Hawkesbury Institute for the Environment have analysed historic data on the extent of Australia’s extraordinary forest fires and found that the… Read More »Global analysis shows unprecedented scale of Australian summer of fire