The governance of local climate commons

University of Technology Sydney. Institute for Sustainable Futures.As climate change impacts accelerate, there is an urgent need to understand and enhance the governance of climate change adaptation, or existing vulnerabilities will be exacerbated, and opportunities to accrue benefits from adaptive responses may be lost. While a global phenomenon, climate change is experienced locally, varying significantly from place to place, and requiring local and context-specific responses. Using lenses of social ecological systems, common pool resources and subsidiarity, this thesis identifies attributes of governance that can support capacity to anticipate, adapt and address local climate change impacts on ecological and social systems. Set in Waverley Local Government Area in Metropolitan Sydney, I examine how urban trees and vegetation, accessible to both public and private interests, represent a local climate commons that provides climate adaptation benefits such as heat regulation to residents, visitors and ecological communities. Drawing on empirical evidence of community attitudes, document analysis and a review of adaptation literature, this thesis posits that by deepening the application of subsidiarity to existing institutional and governance arrangements, shared management of local climate commons can be achieved. Furthermore, deepening subsidiarity will promote and foster the diverse approaches necessary to provide the best chance for inclusive, accountable and effective climate change adaptation

Embedding biodiversity research into climate adaptation policy and practice

Addressing climate change risks requires collaboration and engagement across all sectors of society. In particular, effective partnerships are needed between research scientists producing new knowledge, policy-makers and practitioners who apply conservation actions on the ground. We describe the implementation of a model for increasing the application and useability of biodiversity research in climate adaptation policy and practice. The focus of the program was to increase the ability of a state government agency and natural resource practitioners in Australia to manage and protect biodiversity in a changing climate. The model comprised a five-stage process for enhancing impact (i) initiation of research projects that addressed priority conservation policy and management issues; (ii) co-design of the research using a collaborative approach involving multiple stakeholders; (iii) implementation of the research and design of decision tools and web-based resources; (iv) collaborative dissemination of the tools and resources via government and community working groups; and (v) evaluation of research impact. We report on the model development and implementation, and critically reflect on the model's impact. We share the lessons learnt from the challenges of operating within a stakeholder group with diverse objectives and criteria for success, and provide a template for creating an environmental research program with real world impact

Physical properties of Hi'iaka from stellar occultation data

Two very bright stellar occultations by Hi'iaka, the largest satellite of the dwarf planet Haumea, were predicted to take place during in April 2021. Since the uncertainty on Hi'iaka's shadow path was large due to uncertainty on Hi'iaka's position with respect to Haumea, we performed an observational campaign using medium-sized telescopes to obtain high accuracy astrometric data of Hi'iaka's orbit around Haumea. The astrometric data allowed us to successfully observe the first stellar occultation on April 6[SUP]th[/SUP], with final path crossing North Africa. We only obtained one positive chord in this event from the TRAPPIST-North telescope at Oukaïmeden Observatory (Morocco), but thanks to this detection, we were able to obtain a more accurate path for the second event on April 16[SUP]th[/SUP]. The second shadow path was predicted to cross the continental US from East to West. We carried out a huge observational campaign involving more than 50 professional and amateur observatories across the US and southern Canada. The final path of this second stellar occultation moved slightly to the North of the predicted path and, as a result, we were able to obtain 5 positive chords and negative chords only from the south of the shadow. We also collected photometric data in order to obtain Hi'iaka's rotational light-curve and calculate its three-dimensional shape. The rotational light-curve was obtained by observing the unresolved system of Haumea-Hi'iaka and removing Haumea's rotational light-curve from the data. Using Hi'iaka's rotational light-curve we obtained the rotational phase at which each stellar occultation took place, which allowed us to obtain a three-dimensional model of the satellite. Preliminary results from the stellar occultation show that Hi'iaka, with a triaxial shape as suggested in previous publications, is larger than what has been thought before and with a similar albedo to that of Haumea. In this talk we will present our analysis and preliminary results of some of Hi'iaka's physical properties