Neil Saintilan

Biography

Professor at Department of Environmental Sciences,Macquarie University.

Research Interest

Prior to his appointment as Professor and Head of the Department of Environmental Sciences at Macquarie University Neil was Senior Principal Research Scientist in the NSW Office of Environment and Heritage (the lead environment agency in NSW) where he served as Theme Leader of the Water and Wetlands Knowledge Strategy and Senior Team Leader for Water and Wetlands. During the preparation of the Murray Darling Basin Plan he was seconded to CSIRO as Principal Scientist and participated in the modelling of environmental outcomes associated with national water reform. He is a Fellow of the Society of Wetland Scientists, a Fulbright Fellow, and an Honorary Professor at the Beijing Forestry University and the University of Wollongong. Major areas of research interest include: - The impact of climate change on wetlands, including sea-level rise impacts in the coastal zone, hydrological modification, temperature and elevated CO2 impacts on biogeographic range of plant communities. - Blue Carbon: the capacity of coastal wetlands to sequester atmospheric CO2. Quantifying Blue Carbon benefits in a range of environmental settings, and guiding the development of carbon offsets associated with wetland restoration - Modelling and monitoring the relative contributions of environmental water and natural climatic variability on the ecological response of freshwater wetlands in semi-arid environments. - Trophic ecology of wetlands