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- Regrowth mapping
- Regional biodiversity responses to climate change
- Will climate change affect the ecology of temporary lakes in Australia?
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- Eastern Australian waterbird survey
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- Increasing production from inland aquaculture in Papua New Guinea for food and income security
- Aquaculture and environmental planning group
- Understanding soil-related constraints on aquaculture production in the highlands of Papua New Guinea
- Improving technologies for inland aquaculture in Papua New Guinea (ACIAR Project FIS2014062)
- Drying of ancient Thirlmere Lakes caused by human activities
- Application of GIS and remote sensing to assess sustainable mariculture and protect conservation zones
- Improving the sustainability of rice-shrimp farming systems in the Mekong Delta, Vietnam
- A SWOT analysis of Papua New Guinea’s inland fisheries and aquaculture sectors
- Carbon and floodplain biota in the Macquarie marshes
- Micro-invertebrate community dynamics and flooding in the Macquarie marshes
- Just add water? The effectiveness of environmental flows during wetland vegetation restoration
- Application of motion sensing cameras as a tool for monitoring riparian fauna
- Captive or wild?
- Brolga and Sarus crane diet comparison
- Lake Brewster pelican banding
- Aquatic invertebrate strategies for coping with drought
- Submission on Draft Lake Eyre Basin Strategic Plan
- The Menindee Lakes Water Savings Project – an example of poor decision-making
- Flow-MER
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Terrestrial ecosystems
- Post-fire recovery of threatened ecological communities
- Environment Recovery Project: Australian bushfires
- Community stability of upland swamp vegetation
- An innovative approach to maximising catchment water yield in a changing climate
- Post-fire seed production in Hakea Gibbosa
- Managing fire regimes with thresholds to save threatened flora and fauna
- Stopping the toad
- Trophic cascades in NSW North Coast forests
- Individual hunting behavior in feral cats
- Mallee Ecosystem Dynamics
- Investigating artificial waterhole utilisation and management in north-eastern Botswana
- Investigating the spatial ecology, habitat use, behaviour, and ecosystem engineering of hippopotamus (Hippopotamus amphibius), a keystone species in the Okavango Delta and Chobe River, northern Botswana
- Does overgrazing reduce ecosystem functions
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- Platypus breeding
- Maximising establishment success in reintroduced populations
- PhD scholarship saving our species - patch value, viability and resilience
- PhD scholarship – mechanics of species irruptions
- Conservation ecology of Greater bilby: survival, reproductive success and movement ecology in a breeding sanctuary in NSW
- Scientia PhD scholarship - Identifying healthy burning practices for Australia’s threatened plant species
- Scientia PhD scholarship - Ecosystem restoration through rewilding
- Platypus population health and dynamics
- Tackling prey naiveté in Australia’s endangered mammals
- Testate amoebae: a new biomarker of climate change and human impact in peatlands
- Surface water dynamics as a function of climate and river flow data
- Multisensor integration for environmental flows
- Response of northern Australian mangroves to climatic variability
- Comparative effects of extreme heat on threatened desert mammals
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- Home
- About us
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Our research
Conservation practice
- Water Information System for the Environment (WISE)
- Red list of ecosystems
- Shrub encroachment as a legacy of native mammal decline
- Foraging and habitat ecology of the yellow-tailed black-cockatoo
- Tackling prey naïveté in Australia’s threatened mammals
- Biodiversity sampling in Strzelecki Regional Reserve
- The reintroduction of locally extinct mammals: The landscape ecosystem approach
- The persistence of common wombats in road impacted environments
- Temperate highland peat swamps on sandstone
- Cumberland plain woodland restoration
- Strategic adaptive management
- Limit to climate change adaption in floodplain wetlands - Macquarie Marshes
- Managing for ecosystem change in the greater blue mountains world heritage area
- Adaptive management of Ramsar Wetlands
- Managing for biodiversity in boom and bust cycle environments
- Submission on Biodiversity Act Review
Remote sensing and GIS
- Mangrove response to climatic variability
- Using radar satellite imagery to detect and monitor flooding in arid Australian wetlands
- Supporting continental retrieval of vegetation biophysical attributes
- The Injune Landscape Collaborative Project
- Tree species shifts in response to environmental change
- Regrowth mapping
- Regional biodiversity responses to climate change
- Will climate change affect the ecology of temporary lakes in Australia?
Rivers and wetlands
- Changes to the Darling River and Menindee Lakes – past, present and future
- Lowbidgee wetlands of the Murray-Darling Basin - The Nimmie-Caira
- A stitch in time – synergistic impacts to platypus metapopulation extinction risk
- Tube fishway project
- National waterbird survey
- Eastern Australian waterbird survey
- Feather map of Australia
- Life history and dynamics of a platypus (Ornithorhynchus anatinus) population: four decades of mark-recapture surveys
- Adequacy of environmental assessment of the proposed Macquarie River pipeline to the city of Orange
- Increasing production from inland aquaculture in Papua New Guinea for food and income security
- Aquaculture and environmental planning group
- Understanding soil-related constraints on aquaculture production in the highlands of Papua New Guinea
- Improving technologies for inland aquaculture in Papua New Guinea (ACIAR Project FIS2014062)
- Drying of ancient Thirlmere Lakes caused by human activities
- Application of GIS and remote sensing to assess sustainable mariculture and protect conservation zones
- Improving the sustainability of rice-shrimp farming systems in the Mekong Delta, Vietnam
- A SWOT analysis of Papua New Guinea’s inland fisheries and aquaculture sectors
- Carbon and floodplain biota in the Macquarie marshes
- Micro-invertebrate community dynamics and flooding in the Macquarie marshes
- Just add water? The effectiveness of environmental flows during wetland vegetation restoration
- Application of motion sensing cameras as a tool for monitoring riparian fauna
- Captive or wild?
- Brolga and Sarus crane diet comparison
- Lake Brewster pelican banding
- Aquatic invertebrate strategies for coping with drought
- Submission on Draft Lake Eyre Basin Strategic Plan
- The Menindee Lakes Water Savings Project – an example of poor decision-making
- Flow-MER
Terrestrial ecosystems
- Post-fire recovery of threatened ecological communities
- Environment Recovery Project: Australian bushfires
- Community stability of upland swamp vegetation
- An innovative approach to maximising catchment water yield in a changing climate
- Post-fire seed production in Hakea Gibbosa
- Managing fire regimes with thresholds to save threatened flora and fauna
- Stopping the toad
- Trophic cascades in NSW North Coast forests
- Individual hunting behavior in feral cats
- Mallee Ecosystem Dynamics
- Investigating artificial waterhole utilisation and management in north-eastern Botswana
- Investigating the spatial ecology, habitat use, behaviour, and ecosystem engineering of hippopotamus (Hippopotamus amphibius), a keystone species in the Okavango Delta and Chobe River, northern Botswana
- Does overgrazing reduce ecosystem functions
-
Study with us
Postgraduate research projects
- Platypus breeding
- Maximising establishment success in reintroduced populations
- PhD scholarship saving our species - patch value, viability and resilience
- PhD scholarship – mechanics of species irruptions
- Conservation ecology of Greater bilby: survival, reproductive success and movement ecology in a breeding sanctuary in NSW
- Scientia PhD scholarship - Identifying healthy burning practices for Australia’s threatened plant species
- Scientia PhD scholarship - Ecosystem restoration through rewilding
- Platypus population health and dynamics
- Tackling prey naiveté in Australia’s endangered mammals
- Testate amoebae: a new biomarker of climate change and human impact in peatlands
- Surface water dynamics as a function of climate and river flow data
- Multisensor integration for environmental flows
- Response of northern Australian mangroves to climatic variability
- Comparative effects of extreme heat on threatened desert mammals
- Our Impact
- News
- Wild Deserts
- Flow-MER

Project leader: A/Professor Jes Sammut, UNSW
Project coordinator (Vietnam): Dr Nguyen van Hao
Project summary:
Rice and shrimp have been farmed in rotation in the Mekong Delta for 40 years. Rice is farmed in the wet season when water salinity is low. Shrimp is farmed extensively and semi-intensively during the dry season when water salinity is too high to continue with rice production. Rice farming is promoted by the Government of Vietnam to ensure demand for rice is met locally and to maintain an export market. Rice production is also considered to be an important component of the sustainability of the rice–shrimp system. Increasing salinity, as a result of changing environmental conditions and catchment-wide water management, has led to rice crop losses and reduced yields in the normally productive wet season. Shrimp yields have been affected by recurrent disease outbreaks exacerbated by stocking of poor-quality post-larvae and declining pond soil and water quality. Research is already underway to test redesigned rice–shrimp farming systems and new salt-resistant rice varieties, but the mechanisms underpinning the sustainability of rice–shrimp production systems are poorly understood. Further research is required on key factors, mechanisms and constraints that influence the productivity of new rice–shrimp farming systems. The research will enable scientifically-validated modifications to the farming system to increase profitability and ensure sustainable practices are promoted.
Research questions, aims and objectives
The following research questions will be addressed:
- What are the limiting factors and problems for rice–shrimp farming? What are the beneficial effects of growing rice and shrimp together?
- Can the pond and canal designs and water management practices be improved? How can biotic interactions be improved?
- How can nutrients be managed in the system?
The overall aim of the project is to increase yields and profitability of rice–shrimp production systems, particularly of new designs, in the Mekong Delta and ensure these systems can adapt to environmental change and its effect on pond soil and water quality.
The specific research objectives are:
- To better understand the key components of the sustainability of rice–shrimp farming systems.
- To determine the sustainability of the rice–shrimp farming system by testing the identified key risk factors and system components.
- To determine, explain and quantify the benefits to productivity of integrating rice and shrimp farming.
- To identify and promote better management strategies to improve productivity and sustainability of rice–shrimp farming systems.
Planned outputs
A framework (Bayesian belief network; BBN) that captures the management and environmental factors that affect rice–shrimp productivity at different geographical scales
- Scientific knowledge on the benefits of rice–shrimp farming, constraints and opportunities for enhanced production, and management practices presented in research, technical and extension publications.
- Provision of information, through the Research Institute for Aquaculture No. 2 (RIA2) and partners, to inform policy and mechanisms for supporting the future of rice–shrimp farming. Transfer of findings to policymakers through workshops, meetings and publications.
- Formal training programs using the ‘train-the-trainer’ approach for staff of the Department of Agriculture Extension Stations (PAEC) and on-farm training of lead farmers and farmer groups. Findings will also be disseminated through the mass media. Knowledge on the opportunities for, and constraints to, collective farmer engagement and technology adoption.
Expected outcomes
- Adoption of sustainable rice–shrimp farming system and promulgation of the farming system through development programs and policy. A new Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (MARD) program will support rice–shrimp farming in the whole region based on project outputs.
- Identified knowledge gaps and the key parameters to improve economic and environmental outcomes.
- Improved research, technical and extension services through capacity building.
- Better informed farmers—better skills, knowledge and community cooperation.
Expected impacts
- Reliable crops and an increase in rice and shrimp yields and profitability.
- Improved income and food security.
- Reduction in on- and offsite environmental degradation.
Funding: 1,519,566 from ACIAR; Total from all sources: $4,420,733
List of personnel:
- A/Professor Jes Sammut, UNSW – Project Leader
- Dr Nguyen van Hao, RIA2 – Vietnam Project Coordinator, RIA2
- Professor Michele Burford, Griffith University – Collaborating Scientist
- Dr Jason Condon, Charles Sturt University – Collaborating Scientist
- Professor Le Quang Tri, Can Tho University – Collaborating Scientist
- Dr Cao Van Phung, CLRRI – Collaborating Scientist
Project Partners:
- The University of New South Wales, opens in a new window: Commission Agency.
- Research Institute for Aquaculture 2 (RIA2), Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam.
- Griffith University.
- Charles Sturt University.
- Can Tho University (CTU), Vietnam.
- Cuu Long Rice Research Institute (CLRRI), Vietnam.
