Griffith Research Online

Biochar, produced from the thermochemical conversion of biomass waste, has various applications owing to its broad utility and advantageous properties. This study employs a scientometric approach to comprehensively assess the advancements in biochar application from 2022 to 2023. Utilizing 13,357 bibliographic records sourced from the Web of Science Core Collection with the search term “biochar”, the analysis focuses on authorship, national contributions, and keyword trends. Findings demonstrate a continual rise in annual publications since 2009, albeit with a moderated growth rate in 2023. China leads in publication outputs, followed by USA and India, with Hailong Wang emerging as a prominent figure in biochar research. Keyword co-occurrence analyses identify key research themes such as biochar’s role in climate change mitigation, easing salinity and drought stress, immobilizing toxic metals, degrading organic pollutants, serving as additives in anaerobic digestion, and functioning as electrodes in microbial fuel cells. Among these, biochar’s application for global climate change mitigation gains significant attention, while its utilization as electrodes in microbial fuel cells emerges as a promising research frontier, indicating the growing need for sustainable energy sources. The study also outlines critical research gaps and future priorities for enhancing biochar application. Overall, it highlights the diverse applicability of biochar and offers valuable insight into research progression and forthcoming directions in biochar studies.

The commitment to reduce emissions in global climate change science meetings shows collective responsibility to mitigate the risk of climatic extremes in the Anthropocene. However, growing anthropogenic footprint and climate change will exacerbate the impacts of extreme events on freshwater systems, necessitating the need to enhance contemporary understanding of future changes in drought characteristics (e.g., severity, duration, etc.) and climatic extremes in groundwater basins to assess their implications for water supplies and allocation. Using bias-corrected ensemble mean of nine Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 6 (CMIP6) models, drought characteristics are assessed for two future socio-economic scenarios (SSP 370 and 585). Two drought indicators (standardised precipitation index and standardised runoff index) were combined with Heatwave total length (HWTL) to measure changes in drought characteristics and heatwave propagation, respectively, over four groundwater basins (South West Western Australia-SWWA; Murray Darling Basin-MDB; Cambrian Limestone Aquifer-CLA; and South Australia-SA) in Australia. Our findings indicate that as Australian summers become considerably warmer, particularly toward the late twenty-first century, the relationship between rainfall and runoff extremes, which exhibited strong connections historically (e.g., in CLA; r = 0.87), will vary in the future. This relationship is expected to increase in SA, showing stronger correlations (r = 0.67 and 0.82 for SSP 370 and SSP 585, respectively) but decrease in SWWA (r = 0.43 and 0.20, for SSP 370 and SSP 585, respectively). In the MDB, heatwaves are projected to propagate more rapidly into hydrological drought during summer and autumn under the SSP 585 scenario. Even though drought-affected areas are expected to decline in between decades across Australia, the duration and intensity in some locations show no signs of reduction. Increasing drought duration and intensity could limit freshwater availability, and such impact can potentially be exacerbated by the observed shifts and considerable changes in the propagation time of meteorological drought and HTWL to hydrological drought in some basins.

Background Many medical trainees, prior to achieving specialist status, are required to complete a mandatory research project, the usefulness of which has been debated. The aim of this study was to gain an in-depth understanding of trainees’ experiences and satisfaction of conducting such research projects in Australia.

Methods A qualitative descriptive approach was used. Semi-structured interviews with trainees were undertaken between May 2021 and June 2022. Australian medical trainees who had completed a research project as part of specialty training within the past five years were invited to participate. The purposive sample was drawn from participants in a survey on the same topic who had indicated interest in participating in an interview. Interviews explored trainees’ overall experience of and satisfaction with conducting research projects, as well as their perceptions of research training, support, barriers, enablers, and perceived benefits. Interviews were transcribed verbatim and thematically analysed.

Results Sixteen medical doctors from seven medical colleges were interviewed. Trainee experience and satisfaction was highly variable between participants and was shaped by four factors: 1) trainees entered their specialty training with their own perspectives on the value and purpose of the research project, informed by their previous experiences with research and perceived importance of research in their planned career path; 2) in conducting the project, enablers including protected time, supervisor support and institutional structures, were vital to shaping their experience; 3) trainees’ access to these enablers was variable, mediated by a combination of luck, and the trainees’ own drive and research skill; and 4) project outcomes, in terms of research merit, learning, career benefits and impacts on patient care.

Conclusions Trainee experiences of doing research were mixed, with positive experiences often attributed to chance rather than an intentionally structured learning experience. We believe alternatives to mandatory trainee research projects must be explored, including recognising other forms of research learning activities, and directing scarce resources to supporting the few trainees who plan to pursue clinician researcher careers.

This research addressed on the crucial concern of soil erosion in the post-fire Mediterranean landscapes, regarding disastrous wildfires in Greece during 2021. These fires broke out at the Varympompi, Schinos, and Ancient Olympia-Gortynia. To accomplish these goals, the Revised Universal Soil Loss Equation (RUSLE) and Earth Observation (EO) data coupled with Google Earth Engine (GEE) were used to quantify the wildfire effects on erosion dynamics in the burned areas as well as the regulation provided from the emergency post-fire rehabilitation treatments. High-resolution EO data such as Sentinel-2 imagery and climate data from ERA5-Land were processed over the GEE platform to assess soil erosion factor changes before and after the fire occurrence. The analysis was followed up by measurements of the vegetation recovery and rainfall erosivity, which are crucial for the knowledge of erosion processes in such regions. Results displayed great increases in soil erosion post-fire, with rates at Ancient Olympia-Gortynia rising to 118.3 t ha−1 y−1 in the first hydrological year after fire from pre-fire rates of 9.8 t ha−1 y−1. At Schinos site, rates increased from a pre-fire average of 11.6 to 72.2 t ha−1 y−1, and in Varympompi, from 4.8 to 28.8 t ha−1 y−1. Post-fire restoration works reduced erosion processes by approximately 18%. Coupling RUSLE with GEE offers a novel opportunity for dynamic monitoring of soil erosion towards informing land management and policy formulation in the fire-prone Mediterranean ecosystems in relation to the mitigation of erosion. The policy formulation on land management within fire-prone Mediterranean-type ecosystems stands to be influenced by the findings of the current study. Indeed, this is of worldwide importance, whereby management practices need to be adopted to ensure that ecosystems recover rapidly and effectively after fires for the conservation of soil resources.

The building and construction sector is one of the main sectors contributing to carbon emissions around the globe. Current emission reduction initiatives in the building and construction industry have largely lowered the share of operational carbon (OC) emissions in the project’s life cycle emissions. Achieving embodied carbon (EC) emission reductions is essential for decarbonising the sector. This study adopts a comprehensive literature review and expert interviews with key industry practitioners to identify the barriers to lowering EC emissions in the building and construction sector and to propose strategies and actions to overcome the identified barriers and further facilitate the uptake of EC considerations. The results show that the barriers fall under four categories, organisational, financial, regulatory and policy, and methodological and data availability. The study proposes the following strategies for lowering EC emissions: (1) embedding carbon reduction targets into an organisation’s strategy, (2) implementing regulations and policies, (3) integrating digital technologies for EC assessment, (4) encouraging cross-disciplinary coordination, (5) building capacity and capability, and (6) encouraging R&D initiatives. The study provides important insights into the strategies to be adopted to reduce EC emissions. Finally, an evidence-based framework is proposed to offer useful references for professionals and decision-makers in the building and construction sector when planning and implementing EC reduction strategies.