UNE > News and Events > Browse by article > Top award for inland water research goes to UNE professor

Next Agreement assures student services at UNE February 10, 2006  

Previous "Intellectuals and War" conference breaks new ground February 7, 2006 

Top award for inland water research goes to UNE professor

February 09, 2006

AndrewMite.thumb.jpgA freshwater ecologist from The University of New England has won Australia's most important award for the study of inland water systems ("limnology").

Professor Andrew Boulton was named as the winner of the Australian Society for Limnology (ASL) Medal for 2005 at the Society's annual Congress late last year in Hobart. The medal acknowledges "overall scientific excellence and outstanding achievement".

Professor Boulton's achievements relate to the protection (and restoration) of river health and groundwater quality - subjects of increasingly vital concern to all Australians. His research on these subjects at UNE over the past 10 years has attracted Commonwealth Government funding of around $1 million.

In studying interactions between surface water and groundwater in coastal river systems, he has discovered a new world, just below the river bed, inhabited by a multitude of tiny creatures (such as water mites) previously unknown to science. Apart from its intrinsic significance, this discovery has opened up the possibility of using the abundance and diversity of such animals as a reliable indicator of groundwater quality. Professor Boulton and his students have shown that this biodiversity can be reduced by mining, forestry and agriculture along the river.

(The photograph displayed here shows Professor Boulton with a magnified image of one of the newly-discovered water mites.)

His other research subjects include the management of water flow in rivers to protect both wetland ecosystems and the breeding grounds of commercially important fish.

Working with a team of freshwater ecologists at UNE that includes three Post-Doctoral Fellows, 12 PhD students, and three Master's students, Professor Boulton says he is more proud of his students' achievements than his own. "I've seen them make a lot of great discoveries," he said. Two of the Post-Doctoral Fellows working with him are former PhD students of his who have obtained funding to return to the group and, as he says, "extend its depth". His group, within UNE's School of Environmental Sciences and Natural Resources Management, leads Australia (and in some respects the world) in research on river / groundwater interactions and the ecology of groundwater fauna.

Professor Boulton is committed to the education of scientists in this vital field, and is the co-author of a textbook, "Australian Freshwater Ecology", that has been used in universities throughout Australia since its publication in 1999. He is also the co-author of "Freshwater Ecology: A Scientific Introduction", published in 2004.

He will be presented with the ASL Medal (and deliver an address) at the Society's 2006 Congress in Albury next September.


Media contact: Professor Andrew Boulton on (02) 6773 3760 or Jim Scanlan (UNE Public Relations) on (02) 6773 3049.

Posted by Jim Scanlan at February 9, 2006 03:09 PM