Scale In Australia Research Articles

Nationally representative estimates of food insecurity during COVID‐19: An investigation of the Food Insecurity Experience Scale in Australia

AbstractThe purpose of this paper was to measure the prevalence of food insecurity (FI) in Australia during the COVID‐19 pandemic using the 8‐item Food Insecurity Experience Scale (FIES). Employing the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) survey, Rasch models alongside a discrete method were used to investigate the severity of FI and robustness of the 8‐item FIES during 2020–2021. Our results indicate that during 2020–2021, 6.47% of Australians experienced moderate or severe FI and 2.93% experienced severe FI. Validation tests following United Nations guidelines show similar weighted and unweighted results and consistency with the discrete method. Infit and outfit metrics, alongside measures of reliability and residual correlations, were all within the expected range. We conclude that the FIES administered as part of Wave 20 of the HILDA survey was a suitable instrument for measuring the prevalence of FI at a representative population level. Although Australia has been measuring FI for 40 years, it has been characterised by measurement inconsistency, inadequacy and infrequency, resulting in insufficient data for policymaking. Reliable representative population estimates of the extent of FI in Australia provides critical intelligence for an effective policy response.

Probabilistic analysis of drought impact on wheat yield and climate change implications

Drought is projected to intensify under warming climate and will continuously threaten global food security. Assessing the risk of yield loss due to drought is key to developing effective agronomic options for farmers and policymakers. However, little has been known about determining the likelihood of reduced crop yield under different drought conditions and defining thresholds that trigger yield loss at the regional scale in Australia. Here, we estimated the dependence of yield variation on drought conditions and identified drought thresholds for 12 Australia's key wheat producing regions with historical yield data by developing bivariate models based on copula functions. These identified drought thresholds were used to investigate drought statistics under climate change with an ensemble of 36 climate models from Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 6 (CMIP6). We found that drought-induced yield loss was region-specific. The drought thresholds leading to the same magnitude of wheat yield reduction were smaller in regions of southern Queensland and larger in Western Australia mainly due to different climate and soil conditions. Drought will be more frequent and affect larger areas under future warming climates. Based on our results, we advocate for more effective crop management options, particularly in regions where wheat yield is vulnerable to drought in Australia. This will mitigate potential drought impacts on crop production and safeguard global food security.

Development and validation of the COVID-19 Impact Scale in Australia

Objective The COVID-19 pandemic significantly impacted and continues to impact the health and well-being of Australian adults. However, there has been no instrument validated to comprehensively measure how the COVID-19 pandemic impacted adults in Australia across several domains (e.g. fear of COVID-19, attitudes towards vaccination, psychosocial impact of lockdowns). The current study conducted a rigorous psychometric process to develop and validate an instrument to measure the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic in Australia, the COVID-19 Impact Scale (CIS). Method Data was obtained from the Australian population. Participants (N = 563) aged between 19 and 91 years (M = 54.50, SD = 16.16) provided online responses between June, 2021 and May, 2022. The majority of participants were female (60.9%), employed either full-time (37.7%) or part-time (22.0%), and had completed an undergraduate degree or higher (70.1%). An initial pool of 30 items was developed based on a review of the literature and input from a panel of experts including psychologists, epidemiologists, and public health experts, among others. The study used network psychometrics to examine the psychometric properties of: (1) item score distributions; (2) item redundancy; (3) dimensionality; (4) model fit; (5) measurement invariance; (6) reliability; and (7) criterion validity. Results Following an evaluation of items for ceiling/floor effects and redundancy, the final CIS network model included eighteen nodes and displayed a three-dimensional structure. The three communities of “Fear” (consisting of three nodes; ω = 0.82), “Attitudes” (consisting of ten nodes; ω = 0.89), and “Ill-being” (consisting of five nodes; ω = 0.79) displayed adequate reliability. The evaluation of model fit indicated a good fit of the network model (RMSEA = 0.047; CFI =0.98). Conclusion The instrument is available to be used by Australian researchers and implemented to evaluate public policies, adapted for future pandemics, or used internationally.

Development and validation of the student ratings in clinical teaching scale in Australia: a methodological study.

This study aimed to devise a valid measurement for assessing clinical students' perceptions of teaching practices. A new tool was developed based on a meta-analysis encompassing effective clinical teaching-learning factors. Seventy-nine items were generated using a frequency (never to always) scale. The tool was applied to the University of New South Wales year 2, 3, and 6 medical students. (Exploratory factor analysis (EFA] and confirmatory factor analysis (CFA), respectively) were conducted to establish the tool's construct validity and goodness of fit, and Cronbach's α was used for reliability. In total, 352 students (44.2%) completed the questionnaire. The EFA identified student-centered learning, problem-solving learning, self-directed learning, and visual technology (reliability, 0.77 to 0.89). CFA showed acceptable goodness of fit (chi-square P<0.01, comparative fit index=0.930 and Tucker-Lewis index=0.917, root mean square error of approximation=0.069, standardized root mean square residual=0.06). The established tool-Student Ratings in Clinical Teaching (STRICT)-is a valid and reliable tool that demonstrates how students perceive clinical teaching efficacy. STRICT measures the frequency of teaching practices to mitigate the biases of acquiescence and social desirability. Clinical teachers may use the tool to adapt their teaching practices with more active learning activities and to utilize visual technology to facilitate clinical learning efficacy. Clinical educators may apply STRICT to assess how these teaching practices are implemented in current clinical settings.

Conceptual Approaches of Health and Wellbeing at the Apartment Building Scale: A Review of Australian Studies

The complexity of environmental challenges facing populations are pushing researchers to go beyond traditional study designs alone to investigate health within the urban environment using integrated coupled human-environment systems thinking. As high-density apartment living is increasing in Australia, it is important to understand the conceptual frameworks guiding research at this scale in Australia; therefore, this article provides a systematic search and review of residents-based studies exploring whether they conceptualised their approach to health using ecological systems thinking at the building scale. Residents-based research published in English between January 2011 and June 2021 was searched across six databases, with 1265 articles identified and six articles included for review. Findings demonstrate a lack of study designs that use systemic and integrated thinking. More specifically, complex systems thinking of health and the urban environment with coupled human-environment views are not fully grasped or reflected in current study designs. This gap is further complicated by a lack of explicit definition and conceptualisation of health and wellbeing and a diverse approach to their use. Future research should consider adopting relational and integrated thinking of health drivers along with an ecological perspective to address residents’ multiple challenges and implement the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

Sediment dynamics at different timescales on an embayed coast in southeastern Australia

The concept of coastal sediment compartments has recently been adopted at a national scale in Australia to better understand sediment and shoreline dynamics and to underpin management of future shoreline behaviour in response to impacts of climate change. Geomorphological studies in southern NSW have provided a foundation for development of conceptual models of estuary and sandy barrier evolution. Geochronological reconstructions using radiocarbon, optically-stimulated luminescence, and other dating techniques, reviewed in this paper, demonstrate that adjacent compartments are at successive stages. Three compartments, Illawarra, Shoalhaven and Moruya, are compared, each with different catchment characteristics and different levels of human intervention. Landform change and sediment accumulation at millennial timescales enable estimates of past sediment accretion (vertical accumulation) and horizontal displacement of shorelines (particularly progradation), as a first step towards quantifying volumetric changes of morphology. Lake Illawarra is a barrier estuary at an early stage of infill, but land-use change, urbanisation, and engineering structures at the entrance have accelerated rates of sediment accumulation. The Shoalhaven River has infilled its estuary and delivers sand to the coast. It has been subject to several conspicuous anthropogenic interventions. At Moruya, ongoing supply of sand, primarily from offshore rather than from the catchment, has resulted in beach-ridge plains (strandplains) with changes in their alongshore inter-connectivity driven by differential embayment infilling. Millennial-scale geomorphology indicates landform change providing a means to determine natural trajectories of sediment transfer. However, variability is apparent at century and decadal timescales, compounded by various anthropogenic interventions. Disentangling natural and anthropogenic influences will be necessary to provide greater confidence in estimating past and present sediment budgets. Assessing sand sources and transport rates is important in relation to engineering interventions at entrances, and long-term resilience of coastal habitats. Such issues are the focus of coastal management programs, and this synthesis emphasises the relevance of a sediment budget approach to understand contemporary sediment pathways and provide an indication of future response to engineering interventions and sensitivity to climate change.

Background release and potential point sources of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances to municipal wastewater treatment plants across Australia

Wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) are known to be significant sources of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) to the environment. In this study, PFAS were measured in the influent of 76 municipal wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) serving approximately 53% of the Australian population. Of fourteen target PFAS, twelve analytes including six C5–C10 perfluoroalkyl carboxylic acids (PFCAs), four C4-10 perfluoroalkyl sulfonic acids (PFSAs) and two fluorotelomer sulfonates (6:2 and 8:2 FTS) were detected. Of these, PFOS, PFHxS and PFHxA had the highest median concentrations. The per capita background release of Σ12 PFAS to WWTP influent in Australia was estimated to be 8.1–24 μg/d/per person. The background release was supplemented by contributions from catchment specific point sources (i.e., industry, airports, military bases, and landfills), whereby the number of industrial sites positively correlated with the per capita mass load of Σ12 PFAS (r = 0.5–0.63, p < 0.01). The per capita mass loads were extrapolated to the entire Australian population, with estimates suggesting that approximately 1 kg/d of Σ12 PFAS reach WWTPs in Australia (300–400 kg annually), with more than half of the PFAS (∼59%) attributed to background release and the remaining (∼41%) to catchment specific point sources. These data provide insight into the release of major PFAS to wastewater at a national scale in Australia.

Biology and Management of Wild Oat in Australia

Wild oat (Avena spp.) is one of the most serious weeds in Australian winter season crops such as wheat, barley, chickpea, etc. Avena fatua and A. ludoviciana are the dominant species of wild oat in cropping regions of Australia. Propagation of wild oat can occur through seeds. Dissemination of wild oat occurs by agricultural machinery, use of the contaminated seeds and crop residues, etc. Seed recruitment of wild oat in the soil occurs through high seed production and the shattering ability of plants. Wild oat has evolved resistance to many herbicides and continuous use of same herbicide could increase the resistance build-up in many populations on a large scale in Australia. The use of herbicides with different modes of action can provide cost-effective and sustainable control of wild oat. Non-chemical weed management practices, such as sanitation, residue burning, tillage operation, crop rotations, and improved crop competition approaches could reduce the infestation of this weed. For sustainable control of wild oat, integrated strategies involving chemical and non-chemical tactics may prove useful. Knowledge regarding the understanding of wild oat ecology could aid in strengthening the integrated management of this weed.

Digital soil mapping in Australia. Can it achieve its goals?

Digital soil mapping (DSM) has been used from the national to paddock scale in Australia over the past 20 years. However, there has been insufficient objective evaluation of the limitations of DSM. The continual evolution of DSM methods over time have led to a lack of operational stability that creates an ongoing risk associated with the method. The inherent modelling paradigm of DSM (a reliance on systematic variation) is a key factor that creates potentially significant constraints to the use of DSM in Australia, particularly in the context of different scales of application. Inherent covariate limitations create a further potential ceiling to what can be achieved with DSM at any point in time. As part of a more critical and objective approach to the use of the method in Australia, there is a need for more effective exploration and discussion of these and other constraints in the DSM approach. This will hopefully ensure that it is used in a fit-for-purpose and effective manner in the future.

Estimating actual evapotranspiration at field-to-continent scales by calibrating the CMRSET algorithm with MODIS, VIIRS, Landsat and Sentinel-2 data

Actual evapotranspiration (ETa) can be estimated using optical remote sensing and meteorological data. Herein we calibrated and applied the CMRSET (CSIRO MODIS Reflectance-based Scaling EvapoTranspiration) model at the continental scale in Australia using five remotely sensed data products with spatial resolutions ranging from 500 m (MODIS, VIIRS), 30 m (Landsat) to 20 m (Sentinel-2), and temporal frequencies ranging from daily (MODIS, VIIRS) to multi-days (Landsat and Sentinel-2). The five remotely sensed data products were used to compute a crop factor (kc) based on two vegetation indices which modify Priestley-Taylor potential evapotranspiration estimates (ETp; calculated from nation-wide daily meteorological grids) to obtain ETa. CMRSET was calibrated using daily latent heat observations from 30 eddy covariance flux towers located across Australia, representing a wide variety of land covers and climates. To ensure that CMRSET adequately estimated open water evaporation, daily ETp estimates at six water sites were also added in the calibration network. The calibrated CMRSET model was able to estimate daily ETa observed at the flux towers with a relative Root Mean Squared Error (rRMSE)/coefficient of determination (R2) ranging between 0.15/0.96 (with Sentinel-2) to 0.26/0.93 (VIIRS). Additionally, we independently evaluated the performance of CMRSET by comparing the long-term (5 years or more) differences between mean annual precipitation and ETa with measured streamflow at 638 unimpaired catchments across Australia. The comparison showed a RMSE of 0.50 mm·d-1 (rRMSE of 0.26) and a R2 of 0.70. The CMRSET model performed better than or similarly when compared against two global ETa products based on MODIS optical and thermal data. Extending the suite of remotely sensed data products that CMRSET is calibrated with and using a network of sites located across vast climate and geographic ranges, means that CMRSET can now be used to estimate ETa at continental scales with multiple spatial resolutions and temporal frequencies. Compared to other available ETa products, CMRSET is more straightforward to operationalise, requires less data inputs, can capture ETa dynamics in areas with significant direct evaporation such as floodplains and lakes and does not require manual calibration to detect wet and dry pixels.

Planetary health indicators for the local level: opportunities and challenges in applying the happy planet index in Victoria, Australia.

The United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, New Urban Agenda and Paris Agreement on Climate Change are blueprints for health promotion action that mandate human health is linked inextricably to the health of the environment. In the Anthropocene, new indicators are required to promote community engagement with, and measurement of, healthy and sustainable wellbeing for people and planet. This study explored the need for a metric such as the Happy Planet Index that explicitly links human health to health of the environment for a local level scale in Australia. The project arose from an international coalition of health promoters advocating for 'planetary health' approaches. Qualitative description methods guided the study design involving key informant interviews (n = 17) and four focus groups (n = 27 participants) with health and/or sustainability academics, practitioners and policy-makers. Document analysis of health and environment indices and policy mandates augmented the analysis. Qualitative content analysis techniques were used to analyse the findings. There was strong interest for a local level composite indicator, such as a rescaled Happy Planet Index (life expectancy × life satisfaction × equity adjustment/ecological footprint) for use at a local level. The value of a composite index was: its ability to promote community engagement with planetary health thinking; an advocacy tool for joint health and sustainability policy; to justify programs on health and environmental co-benefits; and to provide a mechanism for correlative comparisons between local governments and national comparisons. However, disciplinary silos currently limit partnerships for health promotion and planetary health and a local composite index could help bridge these divides.

Towards healthier food choices for hospital staff and visitors: impacts of a healthy food and drink policy implemented at scale in Australia.

To determine the impact of a healthy food and drink policy on hospital staff and visitors' food purchasing behaviours, and their awareness and support for the changes introduced. Two repeated cross-sectional surveys, consisting of intercept interviews and observations of food items purchased, were conducted before (March-July 2018) and after (April-June 2019) the target date for implementation of thirteen food and drink practices (31 December 2018). Food purchases were coded as 'Everyday' (healthy) or 'Occasional' (unhealthy). Ten randomly selected New South Wales public hospitals, collection sites including hospital entrances and thirteen hospital cafés/cafeterias. Surveys were completed by 4808 hospital staff and visitors (response rate 85 %). The majority were female (63 %), spoke English at home (85 %) and just over half had completed tertiary education (55 %). Significant increases from before to after the implementation target date were found for policy awareness (23 to 42 %; P < 0·0001) and support (89 to 92 %; P = 0·01). The proportion of 'Everyday' food purchases increased, but not significantly (56 to 59 %; P = 0·22); with significant heterogeneity between outlets (P = 0·0008). Overall, younger, non-tertiary-educated adults, visitors and those that spoke English at home were significantly less likely to purchase 'Everyday' food items. Support was also significantly lower in males. The findings provide evidence of strong policy support, an increasing awareness of related changes and a trend towards increased 'Everyday' food purchasing. Given the relatively early phase of policy implementation, and the complexity of individual food purchasing decisions, longer-term follow-up of purchasing behaviour is recommended following ongoing implementation efforts.

Development and initial psychometric assessment of the race-related attitudes and multiculturalism scale in Australia.

AimThe present study aims to develop the Race-related Attitudes and Multiculturalism Scale (RRAMS), as well as to perform an initial psychometric assessment of this instrument in a national sample of Australian adults.MethodsThe sample comprised 2,714 Australian adults who took part in the 2013 National Dental Telephone Interview Survey (NDTIS), which includes a telephone-based interview and a follow-up postal questionnaire. We used Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) to evaluate the RRAMS’ factorial structure (n = 271) and then proceeded with Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) to confirm the proposed structure in an independent sample (n = 2,443). Measurement invariance was evaluated according to sex, age and educational attainment. Construct validity was assessed through known-groups comparisons. Internal consistency was assessed with McDonald’s ΩH and ordinal α. Multiple imputation by chained equations was adopted to handle missing data.ResultsEFA indicated that, after excluding 4 out of the 12 items, a two-factor structure provided a good fit to the data. This configural structure was then confirmed in an independent sample by means of CFA (χ2(19) = 341.070, p<0.001, CFI = 0.974, RMSEA = 0.083; 90% CI [0.076, 0.091]). Measurement invariance analyses suggested that the RRAMS items can be used to compare men/women, respondents with/without tertiary education and young/older participants. The “Anglo-centric/Assimilationist attitudes” (ΩH = 0.83, αORDINAL = 0.85) and “Inclusive/Pluralistic attitudes” subscales (ΩH = 0.77, αORDINAL = 0.79) showed adequate reliability. Men and participants with low education had higher Anglo-centric/assimilationist attitudes and lower inclusive/pluralistic attitudes, suggesting construct validity.ConclusionsThe RRAMS appears to be a valid and reliable measure to evaluate multiculturalist attitudes in the Australian context. The instrument may be useful in the assessment and monitoring of interventions aiming to promote multiculturalist inclusive attitudes and to increase social cohesion in Australia.

Evaluating Remotely-Sensed Grapevine (Vitis vinifera L.) Water Stress Responses Across a Viticultural Region

The evolving spatial and temporal knowledge about vineyard performance through the use of remote sensing offers new perspectives for vine water status studies. This paper describes the application of aerial thermal imaging to evaluate vine water status to improve irrigation scheduling decisions, water use efficiency, and overall winegrape quality in the Coonawarra viticultural region of South Australia. Airborne infrared images were acquired during the 2016 and 2017 growing seasons in the region of Coonawarra, South Australia. Several thermal indices of crop water status (CWSI, Ig, (Tc-Ta)) were calculated that correlated with conventional soil and vine water status measures (Ψpd, Ψs, gs). CWSI and Ig could discriminate between the two cultivars used in this study, Cabernet Sauvignon (CAS) and Shiraz (SHI), as did the conventional water stress measures. The relationship between conventional vine water status measures appeared stronger with CWSI in the warmer and drier season (2016) compared to the cooler and wetter season (2017), where Ig and (Tc-Ta) showed stronger correlations. The study identified CWSI, Ig and (Tc-Ta) to be reliable indicators of vine water status under a variety of environmental conditions. This is the first study to report on high resolution vine water status at a regional scale in Australia using a combination of remote and direct sensing methods. This methodology is promising for aerial surveillance of vine water status across multiple blocks and cultivars to inform irrigation scheduling.

Towards meaningful geographical indications: Validating terroirs on a 200 km2 scale in Australia's lower Hunter Valley

Terroir can be loosely defined as the ‘taste of place’. Our ability to create meaningful geographical indications (GIs) is limited by our inability to establish terroirs on a large spatial extent (>100 km2). We performed an investigation to build on previous efforts to quantitatively establish terroirs for Semillon grapes grown in Australia's Lower Hunter Valley (Area ~200 km2). We mapped 10 soil variables, six terrain variables and three climate variables across the entire region to a resolution of 25 m. We clustered these variables, using fuzzy-k-means, to create a single ‘Terron map’ that parsimoniously divided the Lower Hunter Valley into six distinct environments (Terrons). The addition of climate variables and new soil data enabled an improvement on the previously created Lower Hunter Valley Terron map. Moreover, preliminary analysis indicated substantial variation in Semillon grape juice characteristics across the Lower Hunter Valley. We concluded the region covered by the ‘Hunter Valley’ Geographical Indication is more than two orders of magnitude too large to meaningfully reflect terroir. The methodologies discussed in this report could be reapplied to establish terroir and thus GIs for other perennial crops.

Genetics of Adhd Dimensions

Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) is one of the most common and heritable childhood onset psychiatric conditions. The clinical phenotype is multidimensional with main symptoms being inattention and/or hyperactivity/impulsivity. As ADHD persists into adulthood (in up to ~80% of cases), some symptoms become more pronounced than others. Furthermore, the various aggregates of dimensions are associated with different clinical features (e.g. co-morbidities) and treatment outcomes of ADHD. So far, the biology behind such symptomatology of ADHD is far from understood. In this study, we aimed to explore the genetics of ADHD dimensions in children and their correlation with neuropsychiatric phenotypes in adulthood. The childhood sample consisted of 11,784 children from (1) Australia (N=4,000), (2) Canada (N=4,339) and (3) Norway (The Norwegian Mother Child Cohort (MoBa), N=3,445). ADHD dimensions were measured by the Strengths and Weaknesses of ADHD and Normal Behavior (SWAN) rating scale in Australia and Canada, and by Swanson, Nolan and Pelham, Teacher and Parent Rating Scale (SNAP) in Norway. The genetic similarity of SWAN and SNAP measures was assessed by LD regression. We also examined how genetic risk for ADHD symptoms correlated with neuropsychiatric phenotypes in adulthood, including schizophrenia, major depression disorder, bipolar disorder, Alzheimer’s disorder, subjective well-being, neuroticism and educational attainment. Overall, our preliminary results (N=3,445, SNAP data) suggest that the genetics of hyperactivity/impulsivity dimension in childhood show higher correlation with genetics of neuropsychiatric phenotypes in adulthood than that of childhood inattention, with strong contrasts between genetic correlations of hyperactivity/impulsivity and inattention with schizophrenia (h2=-0.115 and 0.0037), depressive symptoms (h2=0.483 and 0.278), subjective well-being (h2=-0.564 and -0.369), anxiety (h2=0.307 and 0.188) and Alzheimer's disease (h2=0.280 and 0.076). We will present the results from the full sample(N=11,784). Further exploration of how ADHD dimensions in childhood relate/lead to neuropsychiatric pathology in adulthood will aid our understanding of biological processes underlying ADHD symptomatology and, potentially, lead to better diagnosis, treatment and prevention options for ADHD.

Initial Validation and Refinement of the Hierarchical Inventory of Personality for Children in the Australian Context

ObjectiveAmelioration of cross‐cultural and cross‐language impacts on scale validity should be of concern to the researcher. The Hierarchical Personality Inventory for Children, (HiPIC), a 144‐item Five‐Factor Model Flemish personality scale, is both a cross‐cultural and language scale in Australia. The present study is a mixed method validation study of the translated version of the HiPIC for use within the Australian context.MethodCognitive interviewing of 10 end‐users of the HiPIC identified potentially confusing items. Alternate items were generated by a team of developmental psychologists. A further sample of parents/carers of children aged 5–14 years (N = 399) completed the HiPIC items. Iterative single‐factor principal component analyses of the internal structure of facets were used to select psychometrically defensible items for an adapted HiPIC or HiPIC‐A. The hierarchical model of the HiPIC‐A was then confirmed against a Flemish HiPIC sample using Procrustes rotation, with external validity considered by comparison to the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire.ResultsThe resulting HiPIC‐A, reduced to 124 items including 13 adapted items, achieved sound internal consistency and high total congruence (0.98) with the Flemish sample. Regression against the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire demonstrated further support for external validity of the HiPIC‐A.ConclusionThe mixed method design was an effective approach to a cross‐language cultural adaptation and validation of the HiPIC, confirming the robust nature of the HiPIC model. The potential for the adapted HiPIC‐A to identify adaptive and maladaptive developmental trajectories in Australian children has important implications for practice and further research. On‐going validation is outlined.

Phylogenetic approaches reveal biodiversity threats under climate change

Climate change is expected to lead to significant changes in phylogenetic diversity and endemism at a continental scale in Australia, threatening the hyper-diverse clade of eucalypt trees that dominate much of the continent. Predicting the consequences of climate change for biodiversity is critical to conservation efforts1,2,3. Extensive range losses have been predicted for thousands of individual species4, but less is known about how climate change might impact whole clades1 and landscape-scale patterns of biodiversity5. Here, we show that climate change scenarios imply significant changes in phylogenetic diversity and phylogenetic endemism at a continental scale in Australia using the hyper-diverse clade of eucalypts. We predict that within the next 60 years the vast majority of species distributions (91%) across Australia will shrink in size (on average by 51%) and shift south on the basis of projected suitable climatic space. Geographic areas currently with high phylogenetic diversity and endemism are predicted to change substantially in future climate scenarios. Approximately 90% of the current areas with concentrations of palaeo-endemism6 (that is, places with old evolutionary diversity) are predicted to disappear or shift their location. These findings show that climate change threatens whole clades of the phylogenetic tree, and that the outlined approach can be used to forecast areas of biodiversity losses and continental-scale impacts of climate change.

The Australian Work Exposures Study: Prevalence of Occupational Exposure to Respirable Crystalline Silica.

Respirable crystalline silica (RCS) is a biologically active dust that can accumulate in the lung and induce silicosis and lung cancer. Despite occupational exposure being the predominant source, no study has described current occupational RCS exposure on a national scale in Australia. The aim of this study is to estimate the characteristics of those exposed and the circumstances of RCS exposure in Australian workplaces. A cross-sectional survey of the Australian working population (18-65 years old) was conducted. Information about the respondents' current job and their demographic characteristics was collected in a telephone interview. Occupational exposure to RCS was determined based on preprogrammed decision rules regarding potential levels of exposure associated with self-reported tasks. Overall, 6.4% of respondents were deemed exposed to RCS at work in 2012 (3.3% were exposed at a high level). The exposure varied with sex, state of residence, and socioeconomic status. Miners and construction workers were most likely to be highly exposed to RCS when performing tasks with concrete or cement or working near crushers that create RCS-containing dusts. When extrapolated to the entire Australian working population, 6.6% of Australian workers were exposed to RCS and 3.7% were highly exposed when carrying out tasks at work. This is the first study investigating occupational RCS exposure in an entire national working population. The information about occupational tasks that lead to high level RCS exposure provided by this study will inform the direction of occupational interventions and policies.

Emergent processes of adaptive capacity building: Local government climate change alliances and networks in Melbourne

This paper presents a critical review of multi-level climate governance and adaptive capacity building in the context of Melbourne, Australia. The role of local government is highlighted as significant within the Victorian Climate Change Adaptation Plan (2013) and it is recognised that the state government must work in partnership with local municipalities and communities to effectively respond to the impacts of climate change. This paper reflects on the characteristics of institutional responses to climate change and the extent to which local government ‘climate change alliances’ constitute an emergent and effective form of adaptive and integrative governance. The analysis draws on a review of recent literature and government reports focusing on local scale adaptation in Victoria as well as qualitative data from interviews with local government alliances. The traditionally weak institutional architecture at the local scale in Australia creates a significant challenge in adaptive governance for climate change. The research highlights the current and potential role of regional alliances to overcome structural, institutional and political obduracies as evidence of progress in building adaptive capacity at the local government and community scale.