Sarah Harris
PhD (2005 - 2008)
Supervisor Panel members
Professor Nigel Tapper
Professor Ben Orlove (UC Davis)
Mr. David Packham
Research Focus
My PhD research focused on the environmental and human controls on fire activity in the northern Australian savannas. To address the aim this project utilised GIS, remote sensing and spatial and statistical analyses. Initially this project established the burnt areas of northern Australia and determined the spatial and temporal distribution of fire activity. These data were then used to investigated the relative importance of a range of environmental and human-related variables and finally this project established how these relationships varied spatially. The results from this research can be used to transfer basic scientific knowledge into useful management systems and could potentially be used to predict fire activity spatially and temporally.
Outputs
Burns, S. L., Tapper, N. J. & Packham, D. (2005) The spatial and temporal distribution of dry season fires on Indigenous lands of North-Central Arnhem Land: A feasibility study using MODIS satellite imagery. Spatial Sciences Institute Biennial Conference. Melbourne. 12th – 16th September 2005.
Harris, S., Tapper, N., Packham, D., Orlove, B. and Nicholls, N. (2008) Therelationship between the monsoonal summer rain and dry season fire activity of northern Australia. International Journal of Wildland Fire. 17(5) 674-684
Packham, D., Tapper, N., Griepsma, D., Friedli, H., Hellings, J. and Harris, S. (2008) Mercury in the Environment: A preliminary investigation of biomatter and soils. Clean Air and Environmental Quality. Submitted 16/01/08
Why Monash?
I chose to conduct my PhD at Monash because of the high quality of staff and resources available and for the friendly and supportive culture in the School of Geography and Environmental Science.
What next?
I am about to begin a postdoctoral research position with the Jet Propulsion Laboratory at the Californian Institute of Technology. The aim of the research is to utilise airborne and satellite data to develop new approaches for assessing burn severity and fire recovery at the urban-wildland interface.