Dr Shane Brooks
I am an aquatic ecologist with a passion for robust science, sustainable management and restoration. I have 25 years of experience working to improve the management of rivers and wetlands with pragmatic advice built upon strong evidence, critical analysis and logical thinking. I'm an advocate for closing the adaptive management loop using evidence generated through monitoring and evaluation to improve management practice. I work with people, crunch numbers, build tools, solve problems and get results.
My consulting projects range in scale from site-level investigations up to large-scale national strategic management planning with collaborative teams.
Clients and delivery partners include:
- Commonwealth environmental water office
- CSIRO - Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation
- Murray-Darling Basin Authority
- Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning (Vic)
- Department for Environment and Water (SA)
- Catchment Management Authorities
- Centre for Freshwater Ecosystems
- Arthur Rylah Institute for Environmental Research
- bespoke teams of respected independent professional scientists
Skills
Aquatic ecology
Ecosystem science and restoration
Environmental water
Monitoring, Evaluation, Reporting and Improvement (MERI)
GIS, remote sensing and mapping
Data management, integration and analysis
Information technology for decision support
Ramsar and High Ecological Value Aquatic Ecosystems (HEVAE)
Featured Project
Sentinel-2 satellite imagery was used to map freshwater wetland vegetation and saltmarsh across the Gippsland Lakes Ramsar Site in Victoria, Australia.
Supervised maximum likelihood classification models were trained in ArcGIS to identify different land cover types in the imagery.
The mapping was an efficient and cost-effective way to quantify the extent of aquatic habitats that have been identified as critical to the ecological character of the Gippsland Lakes Ramsar site. We were then able to evaluate the current status of ecological character by comparing the mapped extent to the extents defined in the Limits of Acceptable Change (LAC) for the Ramsar Site.
Fun fact: we call Macleod Morass (pictured) "the Sea Horse" 😀
Effective Teams
Complex problem solving requires effective teams with relevant skills and experience. I work with a network of respected scientists from independent consultancies, universities and government agencies to build task focused teams to deliver projects.
This provides our clients with access to collective experience across many facets of the water industry and complementary science disciplines spanning ecology, hydrology, geomorphology, water policy, social science, engineering and data science.
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