Dr Nadine Marshall is a social scientist working with Australian industry to improve natural resource management.

Dr Nadine Marshall: working with industry to improve natural resource management

Dr Nadine Marshall works as a social scientist on natural resource management issues to maximise conservation goals and minimise associated social impacts.

• 12 July 2010 | Updated 1 May 2012

Overview

• Summary
• Current research
• Background
• Academic qualifications
• Achievements
• Scientific and professional appointments

Summary

Nadine’s research interests centre on understanding how social and ecological systems are resilient to change and how strategies might be developed for sustainability.

These interests are addressed through understanding “resource dependency”; the linkages between people and the environment as well as through operationalising concepts such as adaptive capacity and vulnerability.

Nadine works with primary industries and communities within Australia and the Middle East. These include: commercial fishing, marine-based tourism, traditional owners, cattle grazing, farming, shipping, ports, and coastal communities.

Current research projects

Social and Economic Long Term Monitoring Programme: ($1.8M) Funded by NERP, CSIRO, JCU and GBRF. In this project, we are designing a monitoring programme that captures the current condition of the main user-groups of the Great Barrier Reef region and their relationship with the Reef. We are monitoring traditional owners, commercial fishing, recreation, marine tourism, coastal communities, shipping, ports, grazing, farming and mining developments.

Northern Grazing Systems: ($1.4M) Funded by DAFF. Led by Dr. Chris Stokes. In this project we are assessing the ecological, economic and social vulnerability of the northern cattle industry to climate changes.

Transforming Australian Peanuts: ($700K) Funded by DAFF. Led by Dr. Peter Thorburn. In this project we are attempting to assess the capacity of the peanut industry to transform in order to successfully adapt to extreme projected climate changes.

Australian Industries Transforming: Funded by the CSIRO Climate Adaptation Flagship. Led by Dr. Sarah Parks. In this project we are developing foundational theory for transformation through longitudinal research that focuses on a range of Australian primary industries facing significant climate changes.

Vulnerability to Extreme Weather Events: ($80K) Funded by the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority. In this project we are developing theory about how marine based industries are vulnerable to extreme weather events by interviewing those people that were affected by the 2010-2011 flooding in the southern Great Barrier Reef and Cyclone Yasi which tracked through the centre of the region.    

Background

Dr Marshall spent eight years in research at the Reef Cooperative Research Centre (CRC) based at James Cook University, Townsville, Queensland, Australia. She worked mostly with the trawl industry, line fishery, net fishery, crab fishery, marine tourism industry, charter fisheries and harvest fisheries.

She has also recently worked as a consultant for the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) through the provision of social data for the establishment of marine protected areas in the Mediterranean.

Dr Marshall joined CSIRO in August 2006. 

Academic qualifications

Achievements

Dr Marshall has been heavily involved in the promotion of the social sciences as a useful tool to assist with the challenges of natural resource management at a policy level, within research institutions and within the broader community.

She has held scientific advisory roles for the Burdekin Dry Tropics Natural Resource Management (NRM) group and Queensland Fisheries Service and is a member of the IUCN panel commission on ecosystem management.

Read more about CSIRO's research in Sustainable rangelands and savannas.

Scientific and professional appointments