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School of Physical, Environmental and Mathematical Sciences |
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Research Interests:
Bushfire Risk Management, Geometry, Mathematical Physics
Biography
Jason graduated with a BSc in 1995 and a B. Math. (Hons) in 1996, both from the University of Newcastle. He then completed his PhD in pure mathematics at the University of Canberra. In 2001, Jason was appointed as a postdoctoral fellow at the Centre for Resource and Environmental Studies (ANU) where he worked on the spatiotemporal analysis of climatic variables such as rainfall and evaporation. Jason now holds the position of Research Associate in the School of PEMS, UNSW@ADFA where he works on the Bushfire CRC’s HighFire Risk Project.
Research
HighFire Risk Project:
The imperative for this project arises from the disastrous alpine fires of 2003. HighFire Risk is concerned with better understanding and quantifying the key processes that operate in high country landscapes and that contribute significantly to fire behaviour and bushfire risk. This project takes a multidisciplinary approach that spans field data collection, analysis of fire data, fuel structure and risk management methodologies. Expected outcomes from the project include more efficient prescribed burning practices and resource allocation during major fires, better integration of various facets of bushfire risk management and formalisation of risk management practices.
- Fire weather analysis – This part of the project involves the placement of multiple portable automatic weather stations (PAWS) across high country landscapes. Areas currently being monitored include Tidbinbilla Nature Reserve (ACT) and Brindabella National Park (NSW). The PAWS units capture transects of meteorological variables, including temperature, relative humidity and wind speed and direction, which are designed to provide information on the variation of fire weather over complex terrain.
- Analysis of fire data – This part of the project involves analysis of fire data obtained through sources such as Sentinel and Linescans flown during major fire events. These data, combined with terrain and fuel information can lead to a better understanding of the role of complex terrain in determining fire regimes.
- Risk management methodologies – In this part of the project we consider a fire size class transition model, which is a new conceptual framework for modelling the risk posed by a bushfire. It is a Markovian process model in which the transition probabilities have to be estimated through research into the key processes that cause escalation or decay of a fire. Methodologies allowing for the various facets of knowledge to provide decision support for bushfire risk management will also be investigated.
Spatiotemporal analysis of climatic variables:
Geometric methods and mathematical modelling:
Publications
Journal Papers
Sharples, J.J. (2007) Review of formal methodologies for wind-slope correction of wildfire rate of spread. International Journal of Wildland Fire (under review).
Hennessy, K.J., Whetton, P.H., Walsh, K., Smith, I.N., Bathols, J.M., Hutchinson, M.F., Sharples, J.J. (2007) Climate change impacts on snow conditions in mainland Australia and adaptation at ski resorts through snowmaking. Climate Research (under review).
Sharples, J.J., Hutchinson, M.F. (2005) A procedure for identifying erroneous data in Australian monthly precipitation records. Australian Meteorological Magazine (Under revision to be resubmitted).
Sharples, J.J., Pezzey, J.C.V. (2007) Expectations of linear functions with respect to truncated multinormal distributions – with applications for uncertainty analysis in environmental modelling. Environmental Modelling & Software 22, 915-923.
Sharples, J.J., Hutchinson, M.F. & Jellett, D.R. (2005) The horizontal scale of elevation dependence of monthly Australian precipitation. Journal of Applied Meteorology 44, 1850-1865.
Sharples, J.J. (2005) Local existence of quasispherical space-time initial data. Journal of Mathematical Physics 46, 052501.
Sharples, J.J. & Hutchinson, M.F., (2004) Multivariate spatial smoothing using additive regression splines. ANZIAM Journal 45 (E), C676-C692 .
Sharples, J.J., (2004) Linear and quasilinear parabolic equations in Sobolev space. Journal of Differential Equations 202, 111-142.
Papers in Conference Proceedings
McRae, R., Weber, R., Sharples, J. (2006) Lessons from the January 2003 fires – advancing bushfire risk management in the high country. Proceedings of the Bushfire 2006 Conference. 6-9 June 2006. Brisbane.
Dovers, S., Hutchinson, M., Lindenmayer, D., Manning, A., Mills, F., Perkins, P., Sharples, J. and White, I. (2005) Uncertainty, complexity, and the environment. In: Proceedings, The Challenge of Uncertainty: Learning from Diverse Disciplinary and Practice Approaches, Canberra, 12-13 April 2005.
Sharples, J.J., Hutchinson, M.F. (2005) Spatio-Temporal Analysis Of Climatic Data Using Additive Regression Splines. Proceedings of the International Congress on Modelling and Simulation 2005. Zerger, A. & Argent, R.M. (Eds), 1695-1701.
Sharples, J.J., Hutchinson , M.F., (2003) The horizontal scale of topographic dependence of monthly Australian precipitation. Proceedings of the International Congress on Modelling and Simulation 2003. Post, D.A. (Ed) Volume 1, 130-135.
Technical Reports
Hutchinson, M.F., Dovers, S., Lindesay, J., Letcher, R., Mills, F. and Sharples, J. (2005) Integrated Assessment of Climate Change Impacts. Report on a consultancy for the Australian Greenhouse Office.
Hennessy, K.J., Whetton, P.H., Smith, I.N., Bathols, J.M., Hutchinson , M.F. & Sharples, J.J. (2003) The impact of climate change on snow conditions in mainland Australia. CSIRO Atmospheric Research, ii +47 pp.
Other publications and publications in prep.
Sharples, J.J. (2007) Review of mountain meteorology relevant to fire behaviour and bushfire risk. (In prep. To be submitted to the International Journal of Wildland Fire).
Sharples, J.J., Hutchinson , M.F., Kesteven, J.L. (2007) Spatially coherent temporal trends in pan evaporation over Australia. (In prep. To be submitted to the International Journal of Climatology).
Sharples, J.J. (2007) Incorporating terrain geometry in an eruptive fire behaviour model. School of Physical , Environmental and Mathematical Sciences, UNSW@ADFA. (In prep. This work will be developed in collaboration with D.X. Viegas form the University of Coimbra, Portugal and will be submitted to the International Journal of Wildland Fire).
McRae, R., Weber, R., Sharples, J.J. (2007) Are big fires inevitable? - Perspectives from the HighFire Risk project. (Discussion/Summary paper on the topic of the Bushfire CRC National Forum, February 2007).
McRae, R., Weber, R., Sharples, J.J. (2007) Fire channelling. (In prep.).
McRae, R., Weber, R., Sharples, J.J. (2007) A simple method for calculating fire danger. (In prep.).
McRae, R., Weber, R., Sharples, J.J. (2007) The role of terrain ruggedness in bushfire risk management. (In prep.).
Sharples, J.J. (2001) Spacetime initial data and quasispherical coordinates. PhD Thesis, University of Canberra.
Sharples, J.J., (2001) Introduction to abstract spline functions. Lecture notes. Centre for Resource and Environmental Studies, ANU.
Sharples, J.J. (1995) Maxwell solutions form conformal Killing-Yano tensors; with application to multipole fields. Honours Thesis, Department of Mathematics, University of Newcastle.
Hutchinson , M.F. & Sharples, J.J. (2005) Interpolation of alpine precipitation using partial additive regression splines. (in prep. To be submitted to the Journal of Applied Meteorology).
Sharples, J.J. & Gilmore, A.M., Pitfalls in regression analysis of interdependent quantities. ( in prep.).