2022 Laureate Profile: Professor David Bowman

Professor David Bowman

Administrating Organisation: University of Tasmania

Fellowship Project Summary

FL220100099 – Practical and sustainable pathways to community coexistence with bushfires

Australia’s disastrous Black Summer Bushfires of 2019–20, part of a global pattern of increasingly frequent and destructive wildfires, had massive social, economic, and environmental consequences. The Bushfire Royal Commission uncovered a constellation of complex social, administrative, and environmental factors contributing to their impact. Finding a pathway to sustainable bushfire management is an urgent national and global policy challenge. Professor Bowman will target concrete ways of meeting that challenge, through a careful harmonisation of social, economic, and biophysical lines of research. These will involve collaboration with government at all levels, Aboriginal fire managers, and leading fire scientists nationally and internationally. This multidisciplinary and deeply consultative research aims to develop and apply innovative, cost-effective, evidence-based, public-education and fire-management programs that will positively transform the relationship Australians have with their inherently bushfire-prone landscapes, and to reinforce Australia’s high standing in a vital area of research.

Australian Research Council funding: $3,360,986

Find out more information about Professor David Bowman and their research areas of interest to date by visiting their profile page here: David Bowman - Profiles | University of Tasmania (utas.edu.au)

For further information about this funding scheme, please visit the Australian Laureate Fellowships page.

Image credit: University of Tasmania