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Zoe Ford is a PhD candidate researching the effective governance of freshwater ecosystems. Her work considers river basins as complex, socio-ecological systems that require a transdisciplinary research approach. She is focused on improving the implementation of evidence-based, adaptive environmental governance and understanding how power dynamics influence the development and functionality of environmental policies in vast, multi-jurisdictional river basins.

±Ê°ù´ÇÂá±ð³¦³Ù:ÌýUnderstanding the effective governance of wetlands

Supervised by: Professor Richard Kingsford, Dr Katie Moon, Dr Gilad Bino

Project Description: Her research project seeks to characterise global trends in the application of adaptive ecosystem management approaches and how stakeholder power dynamics affect the design and functionality of environmental policies, focusing on several internationally significant, Ramsar-listed wetland systems in Australia. Her work also models changes to wetland flow regimes under climate change and uses the ICUN ecosystem typology to map wetland ecosystem functionality to inform adaptive management efforts. This is with the aim to improve the implementation of management strategies that are flexible enough to address and account for the increasingly dynamic interactions between climatic and socio-ecological processes.