Published: 5 September 2011

Conserving Thailand’s whales, dolphins and porpoises

Wendy Pyper

The first detailed study of whales, dolphins and porpoises in Trat Province, along the eastern coast of the Gulf of Thailand, will provide critical information on their abundance and distribution, and management and conservation needs.

Irrawaddy dolphins in the eastern Gulf of Thailand.

Credit: Somchai Mananunsap

Project leader, Associate Professor Ellen Hines of the San Francisco State University in the United States, says Southeast Asia is a priority region for studies on cetacean conservation and small-scale fisheries. This is due to the lack of data on cetacean populations and high by-catch rates of these marine mammals in the fisheries.

Among the species of interest are the Irrawaddy dolphin (Orcaella brevirostris), the Indo-Pacific humpback dolphin (Sousa chinensis) and the finless porpoise (Neophocaena phocaenoides).

‘Our project will be the first in this area to gather data on these vulnerable and near-threatened species, which will be crucial for their management,’ Professor Hines says.

‘The eastern Gulf coast, particularly Chang Island in Trat province, has few protected areas and is becoming increasingly popular with tourists and gradually overfished.’

Professor Hines and her team will work closely with federal, provincial and local government departments, scientists, fishermen, villagers and students to collect and disseminate information. The information will contribute to local management plans and the International Union for the Conservation of Nature’s (IUCN) Conservation Action Plan for the World’s Cetaceans.

The collaboration will build on the team’s strong links with the community, established during eight years of research in the region.

The study will involve boat-based surveys, photo identification, spatial habitat modelling, beach surveys, and interviews with villagers about their cultural and traditional knowledge and conservation values.

A local fishing village in the eastern Gulf of Thailand.

Credit: Ellen Hines

‘We will use boat-based surveys to investigate the spatial distribution and abundance of coastal cetaceans, to study patterns of habitat use and how this influences their potential interactions with fisheries, and to study cetacean behaviour, group dynamics and movement patterns,’ Professor Hines says.

The photo-identification work will identify individual animals through fin markings, enabling the team to estimate home ranges and movement in and out of areas.

Geographic Information Systems and statistical modelling will be used to study the relationship between observed cetacean location and environmental variables such as salinity, water temperature, depth, and the presence of nets and fishing vessels. Beach surveys will look for cetacean remains that can provide tissue samples for genetic and physical analysis.

Interviews with community members will determine the number of fishermen using different fishing practices and their catch species. The interviews will also address the history and possible cultural relationship between cetaceans and coastal villagers, stranding locations and numbers, patterns of movement and sightings, and unsustainable fishing practices.

‘Conservation must address the needs and values of local human populations. Studying various dimensions of the human socioeconomic system, and how that influences human use of the environment can shed light on options for cetacean conservation and management,’ Professor Hines says.

In addition to formal conservation measures, the research results will be used to produce educational materials for school and village outreach programs that address basic cetacean ecology and marine conservation issues.

The three-year project is being funded through the Indo-Pacific Cetacean Research and Conservation Fund, administered by the Australian Antarctic Division’s Australian Marine Mammal Centre in Hobart.

This article was supplied courtesy of the Australian Antarctic Division and will be published in Antarctic Magazine, December 2011.

Published: 26 September 2011

Renewable energy sector to benefit from wind-speed research

Craig Macaulay

While some recent international studies have shown a decrease in wind speeds in several parts of the globe, including Australia, more recent results from CSIRO show that Australia’s average wind speed is actually increasing.

The ability to accurately quantify long-term variations in wind speeds is essential to the viability of Australia’s wind power sector.

Credit: Gregory Heath

CSIRO scientists have analysed wind speed observations to understand the causes of variations in near-ground-level wind and explore long-term wind speed trends.

Accurate estimates of long-term trends provide a useful indicator for circulation changes in the atmosphere and are invaluable for the planning and financing of sectors such as wind energy, which need to map risk management under a changing climate.

‘We have a good picture of wind energy availability across Australia from previous CSIRO wind mapping and, with the growth of wind farms, there is an emerging need to understand how climate change can affect the wind resource,’ says Dr Alberto Troccoli, lead author of a recent paper published in Journal of Climate. ¹

‘Wind power production is expected to increase greatly over the coming years and the associated electricity system will be subject to variations of several hundred megawatts – depending on wind availability.

‘The ability to quantify with accuracy these long-term variations is essential to the sector from an economic point of view.’

Dr Troccoli said that, averaged across Australia over 1989–2006, wind speeds measured at a height of 10 metres had increased by 0.69 per cent per annum, compared to a decline of 0.36 per cent per annum for wind speeds measured at 2m height.

‘The potential for increasing the efficiency of energy operations by using quality weather and climate information is therefore apparent and one of the first steps is the standardisation of wind recording stations.

‘Wind observations, like other meteorological variables, are sensitive to the conditions in which they are observed – for example, where the instrumentation sits relative to topographical features, vegetation and urban developments.’

The team found that the wind speed trends over Australia are sensitive to the height of the station, with winds measured at 10m displaying an opposite and positive trend to those reported by a previous study, which analysed only winds measured at 2m.

Light winds measured at 10m, a height that represents better the free atmospheric flow, tend to increase more rapidly than the average, whereas strong winds increase less rapidly than the average winds. Light and strong wind measured at a height of 2m tend to vary in line with the average winds.

‘Our work shows a number of challenges with the consistency of the observations during their period of operation and between sites across Australia,’ adds Dr Troccoli.

‘The quality of future wind observational datasets will depend on having consistency between sites, particularly with respect to measurement procedure, maintenance of instrumentation, and detailed records of the site history.’

He said the work has implications for a variety of sectors beyond wind energy including building construction, coastal erosion, and evaporation rates.

The conjunction of energy and meteorology is the central theme of the International Conference Energy & Meteorology on the Gold Coast in November.

Read Dr Troccoli’s thoughts on What’s the energy forecast? Bringing meteorology and generation together in the online forum, The Conversation.

¹ A. Troccoli, K. Muller, P. Coppin, R. Davy, C. Russell and A. Hirsch (2011) Long-term wind speed trends over Australia. Journal of Climate, doi: 10.1175/2011JCLI4198.1

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