Dr Jon Marsden-Smedley
Honorary Associate
Contact Details
| Contact Campus |
Sandy Bay Campus |
| Building |
Geography-Geology Building |
| Room Reference |
410 |
| Telephone |
+61 3 6226 7674 |
| Fax |
+61 3 6226 2989 |
| Email |
Jon.MarsdenSmedley@utas.edu.au |
Publications
Full Publication List
Selected Publications:
- Fire modellingin Tasmanian buttongrass moorlands I. Fuel characteristics Marsden-Smedley, J.B. and Catchpole, W.R. 1995 * International Journal of Wildland Fire 5 203-214
- Fire modelling in Tasmanian buttongrass II. Fire behaviour Marsden-Smedley, J.B. and Catchpole, W.R. 1995 * International Journal of Wildland Fire 5 215-228
- Changes in the fire regime of southwest Tasmania over the last 200 years Marsden-Smedley, J.B. 1998 * Papers and Proceedings of the Royal Society of Tasmania 132 15-29
- Fire management in Tasmania's Wilderness World Heritage Area: ecosystem restoration using Indigenous-style fire regimes? Marsden-Smedley, J.B. and Kirkpatrick, J.B. 2000 * Ecological Management and Restoration 1 195-203
- Fire history of the northern part of the Tasmanian Wilderness World Heritage Area and its associated regions Johnson K.J. and Marsden-Smedley, J.B. 2001 * Papers and Proceedings of the Royal Society of Tasmania 136 145-152
- Fire modelling in Tasmanian buttongrass moorlands IV. Fire extinguishment Marsden-Smedley J.B., Catchpole, W.R. and Pyrke, A. 2001 * International Journal of Wildland Fire 10 255-262
- Fire-attributes categories, fire sensitivity, and flammability of Tasmanian vegetation communities Pyrke, A. and Marsden-Smedley J.B. 2005 * TasForests 16 35-46
- Central Australian fire regime study: background information, methodology and fire behaviour models Marsden-Smedley, J.B. 2006 * Report for the Landscape Fire Group, School of References, Environment and Society, Australian National University, Canberra, Australian Capital Territory
Achievements
I started my career back in the early 1980s doing manual work, mainly as a farm hand, fencing contractor and boat builder. From there I graduated to working as a track cutter and seasonal fire fighter for Parks and Wildlife before going to the University of Tasmania to do a BSc majoring in Plant Science and Geography. After my undergraduate degree I did Honours in Plant Science looking at the fire ecology of buttongrass moorlands. I then worked for a few years for Parks and Wildlife as their fire research officer working on a buttongrass moorland fire management with this project morphing into my PhD in the School of Geography and Environmental Studies. In my PhD I developed a fire history for southwest Tasmania along with systems for predicting buttongrass moorland fuel load, fuel moisture, rate of fire spread, fire intensity, fire danger rating and prescriptions for conducting operational fire management. After my PhD I worked for Forestry Tasmania doing wet eucalypt forest fuel load research then returned to Parks and Wildlife to work as a fire management officer.
Last year I went back to working in research by taking a one year job with the Australian National University in Canberra. During this job I was based in Alice Springs for much of the year working on the development of a fire regime model for Central Australia. This work involved mapping the vegetation and fire history of a 4.2 million ha (ie 2/3 the size of Tasmania!) study site which centred on the Western MacDonnell Ranges, running a workshop on Central Australian fire ecology and developing a fire behaviour prediction system for Central Australia using data and models from the published literature.
In April 2006 I returned to Hobart to take up a three year ARC funded post-doc with Jamie Kirkpatrick which aims to develop (in association with Steve Lennards PhD) a ecological description of the interactions between fire, animal grazing and site productivity in the more fertile parts of Tasmania. This project has the potential to provide information for the appropriate use of fire for ecological management.
