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School of Physical, Environmental and Mathematical Sciences |
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Physical Geographer
Research Interests:
Global change, predictive mapping of land cover and land degradation.
Geographic Information Science Research Group
Environmental Systems Research Group
Biography
Brian took up his appointment as Professor in Geography, PEMS, UNSW@ADFA in February 2006.
Brian was initially commissioned as a regular officer in the RAF, serving in the Middle East, Europe and Africa. After gaining civil commercial pilot's and flight navigator's licences he flew with ADASTRA on mineral exploration and mapping projects. He subsequently took a first-class honours degree in geomorphology from the University of Sydney. From 1977 he worked on a number of joint-venture projects becoming a director of two small exploration companies and the exploration manager of a third. This led him to form a company to carry out environmental and exploration services for larger organisations. Brian obtained a PhD, also from the University of Sydney, in 1984. He joined the ANU in 1985.
Research, Teaching & Professional Interests
I maintain an active research and teaching program focused on aspects of Global Change. The first phase was the construction of a database of geomorphic evidence for past climate change across northern Australia. In the second phase I set up a research program to improve the reliability of change detection techniques. This led to work in adapting inductive and data driven modelling techniques to the predictive mapping of land cover and land degradation. My students and I have built up comprehensive GIS databases based on a range of field sites. These have been used to test, and refine the use of inductive learning, and other artificial intelligence techniques such as neural networks and genetic algorithms, for environmental management. They have been very successful. My research activity continues to be the development and application of tools to carry out integrated analysis of global data. My teaching is intimately linked with this research.
Brian is editor of the International Journal of Geographic Information Science , is on the editorial board of GEOINFORMATICA and has just completed a term on the editorial board of Transactions in GIS.
Brian has been appointed as a Special Invited Professor in the Institute of Soil and Water Conservation (ISWC), Chinese Academy of Science, Yangling, and as an Adjunct Professor in the State Key Laboratory of Resources and Environmental Information Systems (LREIS), Institute of Geographical Sciences and Natural Resources Research, Chinese Academy of Science, Beijing , and also as a Member of the Australian Academy of Science National Committee for Geography. He is Chairman of the International Geographical Union Commission on Geographical Information Science.
Awards
Brian has received a number of awards for his work including the Australasian Institute of Spatial Information Science and Technology (AISIST) Prize in recognition of a "substantial contribution to the study of the science of Urban and Regional Information Systems", 1997; the Land Victoria Fellowship, University of Melbourne, 1999 and the Eminent Individual Award; Australasian Urban and Regional Information Systems Association (AURISA) 1999.
Selected Publications
Book
Zhou, Q., Lees, B. G. & Tang, G. A. (eds), 2008, Advances in Digital Terrain Analysis, Lecture Notes in Geoinformation and Cartography, Springer, 465pp.
Book Chapter
Roddick, J. R & Lees, B. G., in press, Spatio-temporal data mining paradigms and methodologies, in Discovering Geographic Knowledge in Data Rich Environment, Second Edition, H. Miller & J. Han (eds), Taylor & Francis, London.
Lees, B. G., 2008, Progress in digital terrain analysis, in Advances in Digital Terrain Analysis, Q. Zhou, B. G. Lees & G. A. Tang (eds), Lecture Notes in Geoinformation and Cartography, Springer, pp. 461-464.
Lees, B. G., 2008, Remotely sensed data, in A Handbook of GIS, J. P. Wilson & A. S. Fotheringham (eds), Blackwell, pp. 49-60, ISBN13:978-1-4051-0795-2.
Lees, B. G., Zhi, H., Van Neil, K. & Laffan, S. W., 2008, The impact of DEM error on predictive vegetation mapping, in Advances in Digital Terrain Analysis, Q. Zhou, B. G. Lees & G. A. Tang (eds), Lecture Notes in Geoinformation and Cartography, Springer, pp. 349-362.
Zhou, Q., Lees, B. G. & Tang, G. A., 2008, Advances in digital terrain analysis: The TADTM initiative, in Advances in Digital Terrain Analysis, Q. Zhou, B. G. Lees & G. A. Tang (eds), Lecture Notes in Geoinformation and Cartography, Springer, pp. 3-10.
Lees, B. G., 2007, Natural resources information ~ a vital component of the next generation of LAS to support sustainable development, in Toward a Spatially Enabled Society, A. Rajabifard (ed.), Department of Geomatics, The University of Melbourne, Melbourne, pp. 85-93.
Journal articles
Lees, B.G., in press, 'The language and grammar of maps', Shimen.
Simmonds, F., Wang, X.H. & Lees, B., in press, Comment on 'Marine GIS: Identification of mesoscale oceanic thermal fronts', International Journal of Geographic Information Science.
Jupp, D., Lees, B. G., Rui, L. & Suiping, F., 2008, Setting a framework of a map and information base for the Shu roads of the Qinling and Bashan mountain ranges, Shimen, in press.
Lees, B. G., 2008, Just another Node?, International Journal of Geographic Information Science, 22(1), in press.
Huang, Z. & Lees, B. G., 2007, Assessing a single classification accuracy measure to deal with the imprecision of location and class: Fuzzy weighted kappa versus kappa, Journal of Spatial Science, 52(1), 1-12.
Trisasongko, B., Lees, B., & Paull, D., 2007, Discrimination of scatterer responses on tailings deposition zone using radar polarimetry, Sensing and Imaging: An International Journal, 8(3-4), 111-120.
Lees, B. G., 2006, Formation of coastal dunes in northern and eastern Australia, Journal of Coastal Research, 22(1), 78-89.
Lees, B. G., 2006, The spatial analysis of spectral data, Applied GIS , 2(2), 1-13.
Trisasongko, B. H., Lees, B. G. & Paull, D. J., 2006, Polarimetric classification in a tailings deposition area at the Timika Mine Site, Indonesia, Mine Water and the Environment, 25(4), 246-250.
Conferences
Lees, B. G., Yang, Q. K. & Jupp, D. L., 2007, Re-scaling terrain variables, Proceedings of the 9th International Conference on Geocomputation, National Centre for Geocomputation, National University of Ireland, Maynooth, Ireland, Sept 3-5 2007. Available at: http://ncg.nuim.ie/geocomputation/sessions/6B/6B3.pdf
Lees, B. G., Van Niel, K. & Laffan, S. W., 2006, Predictive vegetation mapping and DEM error, in Proceedings of the International Symposium on Terrain and Digital Terrain Modelling, eds, China, pp. 1-7.
Zhou, Q., Lees, B. G. & Tang, G., 2006, Terrain Analysis and Digital Terrain Modelling (TADTM 2006) China.
Selected PhD Student Theses
Alexander Lee BSc, MSc (Auckland ). 'Redefining structural diversity measures of Australian native forest using Airborne Scanning Laser and high resolution imagery.' (2007).
Paul Carlile BSc (Hons)(UWA) '3D Modelling of Salt Distribution and Movement Within the Ben Chifley Dam Catchment, N.S.W.' (2005).
Sunil Sharma BSc (For), MA (Tribhuvan), MSc (Goettingen), 'Spatial Decision Support for Resource Allocation.' (2005).
Sanjeev Srivastava BSc, MSc (Ag) (BHU), 'Testing a spatial model for predicting fish abundance and distribution.' (2005).
Bruce Doran BSc (Hons)(ANU), 'Modelling the Ecology of Fear.' (2004).
Zhi Huang BSc, MSc (UNSW), 'Modelling uncertainty in complex forest mapping: an integrated application of AI and GIS.' (2003).
Kimberley Patrow van Neil BSc, MSc (Utah), 'Reconciling Geographical and Ecological Paradigms in modelling species distribution.' (2003).
Shawn Laffan BSc (Hons)(ANU), 'Data-driven models for predicting mineral grade: Weipa.' (2001).