Over the past ten years, Federation University Australia's Centre for eResearch and Digital Innovation (CeRDI) has established a programmatic research programs in area including agriculture, climate adaption and citizen science. These programs are supported through partnerships with organisations including Grains Research and Development Corporation (GRDC), grower groups nationally, the Victorian Government, Water Authorities and Catchment Management Authority and CSIRO. This presentation profiles a number of research initiatives that are associated with these programs. CeRDI is able to bring both a production and catchment perspective to agriculture-related research through the development of innovative digital solutions which bridge the gap between academic research and government, industry and community needs.

1. Centre for eResearch and Digital Innovation
CeRDI Research
Agriculture, Climate Adaption and Citizen Science
September 2016

2. Centre for eResearch and
Digital Innovation
CeRDI -
www.cerdi.edu.au
~ 30 staff: multidisciplinary mix of
researchers, technical, support and
administration
Located within FedUni portfolio
Deputy Vice Chancellor
Research and Innovation

3. x =
CeRDI eResearch capability
National
and
FedUni
research
priorities
CeRDI Government,
industry and
community
needs
Research
expertise
Technological
expertise
Real world
applications

4. CeRDI
Groundwater: Challenges and Strategies - 41st IAH International Congress, Marrakech, September 15-19, 2014 4
A variety of applications:
groundwater , soils, agriculture, biodiversity, fire, history,
sports, municipal, etc.
Allows integration of cross-disciplinary data sets
spatial.federation.edu.au
CeRDI capability: spatial data portals

5. CeRDI capability: example projects
www.vvg.org.au
 Victorian Government innovation grant 2011 - 2013
 Federates all Victorian groundwater data
 5 bore databases, spatial layers, EPA data
 Predictions on the fly
 User selected 3D visualisations
 Allows data exports
 Decision support tool for practitioners
 Research-ready data sets

6. Online Farm Trials
www.farmtrials.com.au
 GRDC funded 2012 - 2017
 All grains trials for Australia online
 Working with Grower Groups, government, industry
 Spatial filtering and selective keyword filtering
 Brings in climate data and soils data on-the-fly
 Allows data exports
 Decision support tool for agronomists and growers
 Research-ready data sets of all grain trials

7. Online Farm Trials – www.farmtrials.com.au

8. CropPro diagnostic & economic tools – www.croppro.com.au

9. Commodity price tools
agprice.grainandgraze3.com.au

10. Corangamite Soil Health Knowledge Base
www.ccmaknowledgebase.vic.gov.au/soilhealth
 Corangamite CMA funded 2012 - 2016
 Online portal that combines eLibrary of grey literature with web-GIS
 Over 3500 documents and 170 layers in the system (legacy data capture)
 Allows crowd-sourced soil test data (e.g. farm soil tests)
 Strongly supported by government, industry and community
 Allows data exports, screen capture as pdf, saved workspace links
 Decision support tool for farmers, agronomists, catchment managers, Landcare
 Research-ready data sets of soil and related information

11. Farmer submitted soil tests:
Tools for visualising and monitoring changes over time

12. Corangamite Soil Health Knowledge Base

14. Southern Farming Systems – Soil moisture probes

16. Current project
Department of Agriculture/CSIRO – Field Sense project
Source: CSIRO

17. South West Climate Change
www.swclimatechange.com.au
 A collaboration between the Victoria’s Great South Cost Councils and the
Glenelg-Hopkins and Corangamite CMAs funded 2015 - 2020
 Provides regional information on the projected changes in climate and its likely impact
on the region’s economic, social and environmental assets
 Offers a host of information and resources – including planning tools, maps and
visualisations – to support better planning
 Identifies priority landscapes for carbon plantings and other carbon sequestration
methods, as well as strategies to build landscape integrity

20. Climate Ready
www.climateready.com.au
 Climate Ready is a collaboration across Victoria’s Bayside City Council, Kingston City
Council and Mornington Peninsula Shire areas.
 Designed to help will help residents, holiday home owners and businesses
prepare for climate change
 Includes information about the effects climate change may have on property and
lifestyle, especially changes in the frequency or severity of flood, fire, drought and
heatwave.
 At the centre is the Climate Ready action plan is a step-wise tool to assist in residents,
holiday home owners and business to identify the best actions to take

25. EstuaryWatch Victoria
 EstuaryWatch is a successful citizen science program that supports community
members to actively participate in the monitoring of estuary health.
 It connects people in the community with similar interests about their local environment
 First established at the Corangamite CMA in 2006
 Today there are 18 estuaries monitored by EstuaryWatch groups in Victoria supported
by EstuaryWatch Coordinators across Victoria
 EstuaryWatch supports scientific research conducted by volunteers with good quality
assurance and quality control

28. Waterwatch Victoria
 A community engagement program connecting local communities with river health
and sustainable water issues and management
 Over 20 years of waterway monitoring data collected by community volunteers
 Informing decisions and management actions including algal bloom management,
acid sulphate soil impacts on estuarine condition, environmental water management
and extreme flood events
 Supported by the Victorian Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning,
Catchment Management Authorities, water corporations, local government, the
education sector and the scientific community

29. CeRDI eResearch approach
Research collaboration with industry and community partners taking
advantage of the eResearch tools to:
 Interoperably integrate data (open data, research data, big data,
sensor data, legacy data, crowd-sourced data… any data)
 Answer the frequently asked data/information questions
 Dynamically generate conceptual and predictive models
 Make new discoveries and avoid repeating past research
 Measure the impacts on decision making and facilitate practice
change

30. Third party e.g. ABARE, ABS, BOM, CSIRO, EPAs, Unis, ………State base mapping, etc.
Water agencies, research organisations, industry, individuals, etc.
End users, e.g. Browser, mobile application, desktop application, groundwater model, etc.
Used by: researcher, community group, farmer, environmentalist, media outlet, agribusiness, etc.
Output as:
web services (W3C, OGC
compliant)
Input as:
Data, map layers, grids, text
and imagery in native
format (or web services)
Citizen science
 Landcare,
environmental and
community groups
 landholders,
farmers, individuals
 tourists, visitors
 schools, TAFE,
University students
 clubs, volunteers
GIS
SQL
Sensors
Images
Documents
Organisational
data
Sounds
CeRDI capability: interoperability

31. CeRDI capability: Systems architecture

32. Further information
Annual reports
www.cerdi.edu.au/cb_pages/annual_reports.php
Websites
http://spatial.federation.edu.au and www.cerdi.edu.au
Short documentary films
Online Farm Trials www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xr6pIYRqrb0
Visualising Victoria’s Groundwater
www.youtube.com/watch?v=4w94pW1Jdic
NRM Planning www.youtube.com/watch?v=KQETGvo_G8w
Impact research publication
http://jh.iwaponline.com/content/early/2015/10/24/hydro.2015.169