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Dr Thomas Bishop

Summary

I have an interest in understand how and why, soil and water varies in space and time. My research relies heavily on statistics and modelling with the belief that understanding and predicting this variation can lead to the more precise management of our fragile soil and water resources.

Research interests

Initially upon being appointed as a member of teaching staff my research at the University of Sydney was focused on Pedometrics and Landscape-scale experimentation, the topics areas for my PhD and postdoc in the UK. While I still work in these areas my interests have broadened to include:
- the monitoring of soil and water;
- examining the way the links between the carbon and water cycle in terrestrial ecosystems change in space and time, and with scale.
In recent times I have become more interested in simultaneously predicting variation in space and time which I believe requires a combination of statistical and mechanistic modeling. I am currently exploring the use of data assimilation approaches to achieve this.
My principal research sites are the Muttama catchment in the Murrumbidgee, Cox’s Creek catchment in the Namoi and a forested catchment on “Arthursleigh” a university-owned farm on the Southern Highlands.

Background

I graduated from the University of Sydney with a BScAgr (Hon 1) in 1996 and a PhD in Agriculture in 2002. Following this I worked as a:

Spatial Analyst at the NSW Department of Land & Water Conservation (now DECCw) providing support for developing regional native vegetation plans;
Postdoctoral researcher at the University of Florida in the USA, working on using SWAT to model water quality in the Sandusky watershed in Ohio, and developing a soil monitoring scheme for the Florida Everglades;
Postdoctoral researcher at Rothamsted Research Institute in the UK working on methods for analysing experiments in real landscapes;
Postdoctoral researcher at the University of New South Wales working on a web-GIS for the cotton growing regions of northern NSW.

In 2007 I returned to the University of Sydney and was appointed as a Senior Lecturer.

I am currently the main supervisor of 6 postgraduate students and the associate supervisor of 3 more.

Recent publications

  • K. Panten, R.G.V. Bramley, T.F.A. Bishop & R.M. Lark (2010). Enhancing the value of field experimentation through whole-of-block designs. Precision Agriculture, 11, 198-213.
  • T.F.A. Bishop & R.M. Lark (2008). A comparison of methods for modelling coregionalized variables: parametric vs non-parametric approaches. Geoderma, 148, 13-24.
  • T.F.A. Bishop & R.M. Lark (2008). Reply to “Standardized vs. customary ordinary cokriging…” by A. Papritz. Geoderma, 146, 397-399.
  • T.F.A. Bishop & R.M. Lark (2007). A landscape-scale experiment on the changes in available potassium over a winter wheat cropping season. Geoderma, 141, 384-396.
  • R.M. Lark, T.F.A. Bishop & R. Webster (2007). Using expert knowledge with control of false discovery rate to select regressors for prediction of soil properties. Geoderma,138, 65-78.
  • R.M. Lark & T.F.A. Bishop (2007). Cokriging particle size fractions of the soil. European Journal of Soil Science, 58, 763-774.
  • T.F.A. Bishop & R.M. Lark (2006). The geostatistical analysis of experiments at the landscape-scale. Geoderma, 133, 87-106.
  • Van Griensven, T. Meixner, S. Grunwald, T.F.A. Bishop, M. Diluzio & S. Srinivisan (2006). A global sensitivity analysis tool for the parameters of multi-variable watershed models. Journal of Hydrology, 324, 10-23.
  • T.F.A. Bishop, B. Minasny & A.B. McBratney (2006). Uncertainty analysis of soil-terrain models. International Journal of Geographical Information Science, 20, 117-134.

Contact

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