Professor Patrick D. Nunn
Head of School, Faculty of Arts and Sciences, School of Behavioural, Cognitive and Social Sciences
Contact
| Email: | pnunn3@une.edu.au |
| Room: | Psychology (S6) 7 |
| Phone: | 02 6773 3129 (or +61 2 6773 3129 overseas) |
| Fax: | 02 6773 3820 |
Research interests
Climate change, including the reconstruction of past climates and sea levels, as well as future climate change and its likely impacts on Australia and the Pacific. I am a member of Working Group I of the IPCC involved in preparation of its 5th Assessment Report.
Geo-archaeology, particularly the effects of (climate-driven) environmental change on human societies. I directed all seven seasons of excavation at Fiji’s earliest human settlement (Bourewa). I developed the model of the AD 1300 Event that explains how societies in the Pacific Basin (including eastern Australia) were impacted by rapid cooling and sea-level fall around AD 1300.
Late Quaternary tectonics of Pacific island arcs, looking especially at how land levels changed during the last 500,000 years or so and what this can tell us about large-scale plate movement. Case studies are Fiji, Niue and Vanuatu.
Geo-mythology, explaining how certain Pacific myths may contain fragments of information about past geological events, including large waves, land uplift, and vanished islands.
Publications
Selected Books
d'Aubert, A. and Nunn, P.D. 2012. Furious Winds and Parched Islands: Tropical Cyclones (1558-1970) and Droughts (1722-1987) in the Pacific. Bloomington: XLibris. 358 pages
Nunn, P.D. 1994. Oceanic Islands. Blackwell, Oxford. 418 pages
Nunn, P.D. 1998. Pacific Island Landscapes. Institute of Pacific Studies, Suva. 318 pages
Nunn, P.D. 1999. Environmental Change in the Pacific Basin. Wiley, London. 357 pages
Nunn, P.D. 2007. Climate, Environment and Society in the Pacific during the Last Millennium. Elsevier, Amsterdam. 316 pages
Nunn, P.D. 2009. Vanished Islands and Hidden Continents of the Pacific. University of Hawai’i Press, Honolulu. 269 pages (named one of the Best of the Best from the University Presses by the American Library Association in July 2009)
Selected Journal Publications and Book Chapters (2005-present)
Dickinson, W.R. and Nunn, P.D. 2013. Petrography of sand tempers in Lapita potsherds from the Rove Peninsula, Southwest Viti Levu, Fiji. Journal of Pacific Archaeology, 4, 1-17.
Horrocks, M. and Nunn, P.D. 2007. Evidence for introduced taro (Colocasia esculenta) and lesser yam (Dioscorea esculenta) in Lapita-era (ca. 3050-2500 cal. yr BP) deposits from Bourewa, southwest Viti Levu Island, Fiji. Journal of Archaeological Science, 34, 739-748.
Kumar, R., Nunn, P.D., Field, J.E. and de Biran, A. 2006. Human responses to climate change around AD 1300: a case study of the Sigatoka Valley, Viti Levu Island, Fiji. Quaternary International, 151, 133-143.
Lal, K.K. and Nunn, P.D. 2011. Holocene sea levels and coastal change, southwest Viti Levu Island, Fiji. Australian Geographer, 42, 41-51.
Lata, S. and Nunn, P.D. 2012. Misperceptions of climate-change risk as barriers to climate-change adaptation: a case study from the Rewa Delta, Fiji. Climatic Change, 110, 169-186.
Nunn, P.D. 2005. Reconstructing tropical paleoshorelines using archaeological data: examples from the Fiji Archipelago, southwest Pacific. Journal of Coastal Research, Special Issue, 42, 15-25.
Nunn, P.D. 2007. The AD 1300 Event in the Pacific Basin. The Geographical Review, 97, 1-23.
Nunn, P.D. 2007. Holocene sea-level change and human response in Pacific Islands. Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh: Earth and Environmental Sciences, 98, 117-125.
Nunn, P.D. 2009. Geographical influences on settlement-location choices by initial colonizers: a case study of the Fiji Islands. Geographical Research, 47, 306-319.
Nunn, P.D. 2009. Responding to the challenges of climate change in the Pacific Islands: management and technological imperatives. Climate Research, 40, 211-231.
Nunn, P.D. 2010. Bridging the gulf between Science and Society: imperatives for minimizing societal disruption from climate change in the Pacific In: Sumi, A., Fukushi, K. and Hiramatsu, A. (eds). Adaptation and Mitigation Strategies for Climate Change. Berlin, Springer, pp 233-248.
Nunn, P.D. 2012. Societal disruption in the Pacific Islands from rapid sea-level fall about AD 1300: new evidence from northern Viti Levu Island, Fiji. Journal of Coastal Conservation, 16, 199-209.
Nunn, P.D. 2012. Understanding and adapting to sea-level change. In: Harris, F. (ed.) Global Environmental Issues, 2nd revised edition. Chichester: Wiley, pp. 87-104.
Nunn, P.D. 2012. Environmental change in coastal areas and islands. In: Matthews, J.A. (ed.). The SAGE Handbook of Environmental Change. London, SAGE Publications, Volume 1, pp. 282-298.
Nunn, P.D. and Hunter-Anderson, R. 2011. Defending the defensible: a rebuttal of Scott Fitzpatrick’s (2010) critique of the AD 1300 Event model with particular reference to Palau. Journal of Pacific Archaeology, 2, 92-99.
Nunn, P.D. and Kumar, R. 2006. Coastal history in the Asia-Pacific region. In: Harvey, N. (ed.). Global Change and Integrated Coastal Management: The Asia-Pacific Region. Berlin: Springer, pp. 93-116.
Nunn, P.D. and Pastorizo, M.R. 2007. Geological histories and geohazard potential of Pacific Islands illuminated by myths. In: Piccardi, L. and Masse, W.B. (eds). Myth and Geology. London: Geological Society of London, Special Publication 273, pp. 143-163.
Nunn, P.D., Geraghty, P., Nakoro, E., Nasila, A. and Tukidia, S. 2005. Vuniivilevu and Burotu: the geography, ethnography, and hazard implications of vanished islands in Fiji. People and Culture in Oceania, 21, 83-109.
Nunn, P.D., Baniala, M., Harrison, M. and Geraghty, P. 2006. Vanished islands in Vanuatu: new research and a preliminary geohazard assessment. Journal of the Royal Society of New Zealand, 36, 37-50.
Nunn, P.D., Keally, C.T., King, C., Wijaya, J. and Cruz, R. 2006. Human responses to coastal change in the Asia-Pacific region. In: Harvey, N. (ed.). Global Change and Integrated Coastal Management: The Asia-Pacific Region. Berlin: Springer, pp. 117-161.
Nunn, P.D., Hunter-Anderson, R., Carson, M.T., Thomas, F., Ulm, S. and Rowland, M. 2007. Times of plenty, times of less: chronologies of last-millennium societal disruption in the Pacific Basin. Human Ecology: An Interdisciplinary Journal, 35, 385-401.
Nunn, P.D., Ishimura, T., Dickinson, W.R., Katayama, K., Thomas, F., Kumar, R., Matararaba, S., Davidson, J. and Worthy, T. 2007. The Lapita occupation at Naitabale, Moturiki Island, central Fiji. Asian Perspectives, 46, 96-132.
Robb, K.R and Nunn, P.D. 2012. Nature and chronology of prehistoric settlement on the Vatia Peninsula, northern Viti Levu Island, Fiji. Journal of Island and Coastal Archaeology, 7, 272-281.
Rutherford, J.S., Almond, M.J. and Nunn, P.D. 2012. Analysis of pottery samples from Bourewa, the earliest known Lapita site in Fiji. Spectrochimica Acta Part A: Molecular and Biomolecular Spectroscopy, 85, 155-159.
Seeto, J., Nunn, P.D. and Sanjana, S. 2012. Human-mediated prehistoric marine extinction in the tropical Pacific? Understanding the presence of Hippopus hippopus (Linn. 1758) in ancient shell middens on the Rove Peninsula, southwest Viti Levu Island, Fiji. Geoarchaeology, 27, 2-17.
Current Postgraduate Students
Annika Dean (PhD) - Climate Change Adaptation in the Pacific: Lessons from Fast Start Finance (University of New South Wales)
Morris Harrison (MSc) – Vertical tectonics on northwest Malekula Island, Vanuatu (University of the South Pacific)
Shaiza Janif (MA) - Cues to adapt to future climate change in oral narrations of the past (University of the South Pacific)
Shalini Lata (PhD) - Comparing Risks from Future Climate Change: A Case Study of the Labasa Delta, Vanua Levu Island, Fiji (University of New England)
Preetika Singh (PhD) - Evaluating future sea-level scenarios for Pacific Island countries (University of New England)
Glenn Smedley (PhD) – Mid to Late Holocene relative sea-level behaviour of southern New South Wales and north eastern Tasmania using Fixed Inter-tidal Biological Indicators (FIBIs) (University of New England)
Xue Wen (PhD) – Roles of world views, affect and reason in determining risk perceptions and adaptive responses to global climate change (University of New England)