Science, Technology and Engineering

Environmental Geoscience

Graduates

Gemma Nicol

Ecosystems Analyist, Primary Industries Research Victoria, Department of Primary Industries

I am employed in the research part of DPI called Primary Industries Research Victoria. My work title is "Section Leader Ecosystems Analysis, Bendigo" - sounds impressive but I'm really just a representative for Ecosystems Analysis staff at Bendigo at a higher management level, ensuring we get our problems, issues and achievements recognised. I am part of a large project team working on understanding landscapes as a system, rather than the separate components that make up a landscape (ie. hydrology, soils, ecology). The project I am working on is part of a large State Government initiative called 'Our Rural Landscapes' and is titled "New Dimensions for Agricultural Landscapes". The project involves a lot of modelling of current landscape processes, plus scenarios of future landscapes by predicting the change that might occur (eg. revegetation, erosion, salinity, urban development, etc). I do not do any of the modelling as such, but provide science and writing support to ensure that the assumptions/rules/inputs into the models give appropriate model outputs.