UNSW@ADFA Mathematics Seminar Series 2007
Everyone welcome !
Seminars are usually over 40 minutes plus questions, on Friday mornings, 11:10 - 12:00 in Room P25 on the ground floor of PEMS South (Building 26 on the campus map) unless otherwise stated.
A link to the 2006 program of Mathematics Seminars is placed here for those interested in looking at last years' activities.
Friday 16 March 11:10
Place: P25 PEMS South
Geoscience Australia’s activities relating to Bushfires
Shanti Reddy
Remote Sensing Science & Strategy, Australian Centre for Remote Sensing, Geoscience Australia
Sentinel is a national bushfire monitoring system that provides timely information about hotspots to emergency service managers across Australia. The mapping system allows users to identify fire locations with a potential risk to communities and property. This presentation will highlight the application of remote sensing techniques to bushfire monitoring with specific reference to the SENTINEL system. Recent updates to the SENTINEL system that have enhanced its capabilities and helped emergency managers to access information will be presented. The use of Landsat data to monitor vegetation moisture level which has direct impact on the combustibility of fuel will be described. Fire history mapping enables better identification of areas under threat from bushfires; an effort to study fire history using satellite data will be outlined. The presentation will also briefly address the use of fire spread simulation models.
Bob Cechet,
Risk Research Group, Geoscience Australia
Geoscience Australia’s/ “Wind Risk/” activity is aimed at obtaining a geospatial assessment (Australian continent) of the risk of damage from severe wind gusts to residential, commercial and industrial buildings, and also determining the impact on critical infrastructure. The talk will outline this activity and explore the methodology being utilized.
In recent weeks, Bob has also taken on the responsibility of planning a Bushfire Risk program for Geoscience Australia with a focus on the peri-urban environment, building on the outputs from the Wind Risk assessments and also considering the other important environmental factors. A case study will be examined (tropical cyclone) that demonstrates the methodology employed in determining the local scale wind field from the regional scale wind flow. Tropical cyclones often fan fires (i.e. Cyclone George that recently hit Port Hedland) prior to the rain bands affecting the region. This case study will illustrate how this methodology could be utilized for local scale wind information in bushfire situations.
Dr Isaac Towers
School of PEMS
UNSW@ADFA
tel: (02) 6268 8217
email: i.towers@adfa.edu.au