Melissa Neave

Urban and Regional Planning, Environmental Science and Management, Physical Geography and Environmental Geoscience, Soil Sciences, Sociology, Human Geography

Mel’s research spans the social and physical sciences and seeks to find solutions to natural resource problems at scales ranging from the local to the international. She is currently working on a major project (funded by RIRDC) that aims to investigate the drivers and implications of land ownership change in rural Australia but is also interested in the links between biological and physical systems in these environments.

Mel’s main areas of research include:
Investigating patterns of non-urban land ownership change in rural Australia
Considering the environmental implications of rural land ownership change in Australia
Examining links between river flooding processes and soil condition in semiarid environments
Deciphering the complex links between hillslope runoff and erosion processes
Examining the biogeomorphic influences of small mammals in semiarid environments

Research supervision
Prospective topics for research students:
Environmental implications of rural land ownership change
Rural landscapes in Australia are experiencing rapid rates of land ownership change. This is occurring as a result of many concurrent processes, including farm consolidation and fragmentation, the rise of corporate farming and an increase in absentee and foreign farm ownership. Although we have a basic understanding of the nature of these ownership changes, little is known about the implications of these changes on sustainable farming practices, land clearance, and other environmental factors associated with farming (e.g., the use of fertilisers and pesticides, water resource management, pest and weed management). This project would seek to address these issues by investigating farm practices, and land use and land cover changes in the context of changing land ownership.

Economic and environmental consequences of the transformation of native grasslands to native scublands
The invasion of former grasslands by woody native plants (termed invasive native scrub) is a common occurrence in semi-arid Australia. From a farming perspective, this tends to be viewed as a negative occurrence as it reduces the grazing potential of the affected lands. However, such areas may potentially be beneficial to native fauna and may also help to remediate environmental problems in arid lands (such as rising soil salinity, high rates of Aeolian and fluvial soil erosion or poor soil fertility). This study seeks to investigate both the positive and negative effects of invasive native scrub and to come up with a set of recommendations for how best to manage these systems across a range of scales (from individual farms to entire landscapes) and institutions (from landholders and national parks to catchment management authorities and state and federal environmental and land management agencies).

Geomorphic and hydrologic consequences of invasive species in semi-arid Australia
Across Australia, invasive plant and animal species are abundant. Owing to their competitive advantages, these organisms often negatively impact on the native flora and fauna that were present prior to their arrival. Many researchers have investigated the biological consequences of the arrival of invasive species into an area, and infer that these consequences are brought about almost solely through ecological processes. Importantly, however, it is becoming apparent that many of these species are also effective ecosystem engineers, who can transform the landscape to suit their own needs and thereby strengthen their competitive advantage. This project will seek to address this issue by investigating how invasive mammal and plant species affect the geomorphology, soil character and hydrology of semi-arid floodplains and hillslopes in Australia, and how any changes observed might serve to improve their own biological fitness at the expense of that for native species.