andy-baker.org.web.brid.gy (@andy-baker.org.web.brid.gy) Bsky

How does water get underground – and how much rainfall is needed to replenish it? Thanks to the amazing UNSW team for producing this story on our groundwater and climate research: past, present and future, featuring Marilu Melo Zurita, Martin Andersen, Ellen Corrick, Danyang Sun, Akhilesh Kumar, Muqing Dong and Nane Weber. Some of the research featured is supported by Australian Research Council (ARC) infrastructure and Laureate Fellowship grants, and […]

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Intense fire, extreme rainfall and groundwater recharge: an AMOS2026 conference presentation The Australian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society (AMOS) held its annual conference in Hobart last week. AMOS 2026 had the theme ‘Southern Skies, Southern Oceans: Science on the Edge’. On Friday I was delighted to present ‘An intense fire changes surface hydrology and decreases the amount of rainfall needed for groundwater recharge’ on behalf of Christina […]

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Updates on Cave Climate Data Collection in Australia Back in 2020, in the depths of COVID lockdowns here in Australia, the Australasian Cave and Karst Management Association organised a cave climate ‘baseline monitoring’ project. The cave climate monitoring of Australasian caves continues. I last provided an update in July 2025. Six months on… Five and a half years since the start of the project, some […]

3 months ago 0 0 0 0

AGU Honors Nominations Now Open for 2026 It is that time of year again, when you can nominate a colleague for an AGU Honour. The AGU is a global community supporting more than half a million advocates and professionals in the Earth and space sciences. Both nominator and nominee need to be AGU members and affiliated to the Paleoceanography and Paleoclimatology section. […]

3 months ago 0 0 0 0

Exploring Drip Water Dynamics for Groundwater Recharge The end of the year is approaching, and the papers and pre-prints are still coming from the groundwater and climate research team here and our collaborators. Here is a summary of our outputs the last three months of the year. All are open-access, with links provided below Most recently, my photo made the cover of […]

4 months ago 0 0 0 0

PhD opportunity: 3D mapping of caves We have a PhD opportunity reopened now for someone interested in developing their 3D laser mapping skills. Specifically, the project aims to map cave ceilings at sites across Australia, to identify water flow pathways through limestone from the surface to the groundwater. The researcher will join a team of climate and groundwater scientists on the […]

4 months ago 0 0 0 0

AGU Distinguished Lecture Series: Caves and their stalagmites: linking climate to groundwater recharge I am delighted to have been chosen as a lecturer in the American Geophysical Union Distinguished Lecture Series for 2025-2026. Would you like to hear about “Caves and their stalagmites: linking climate to groundwater recharge” in your university, college or education institute? You can find out more about the series here, and my presentation here. […]

6 months ago 0 0 0 0

A Decade of Research in the Macleay Caves and Karst Around a decade ago, thanks to a government committee that I was a member of, I was encouraged to consider improving our understanding of the caves and karst in the Macleay karst region of Australia*. *Roughly midway between Sydney and Brisbane on the east coast of Australia. That led to me to working with the […]

7 months ago 0 0 0 0

Understanding Groundwater Recharge: Impact of Rainfall and Fires Groundwater can be replenished by rainfall that percolates from the surface to the water table. The amount of rainfall that is needed to generate this groundwater recharge is hard to measure. We determined this rainfall amount by identifying recharge events as water percolates from the surface, through a cave. During our monitoring, an intense fire […]

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Australasian Cave and Karst Management Association Conference, Wellington Caves The ACKMA conference was hosted last week by the amazing team at Wellington Caves in New South Wales, Australia. I had the fortune to present to regional cave and karst experts, mangers and cave guides. And a unique invite to co-lead cave tours through Cathedral Cave. I first presented to this audience in 2010 at […]

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Understanding Groundwater Recharge in Western Australia This week, our winter fieldwork and research presentations in the south west of Western Australia took place during seasonably wet conditions. This might sound unremarkable, but this region has been experiencing a long-term decline in winter rainfall over many decades. This has led to a greater pressure on local groundwater resources. Hence our research interest […]

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PhD Opportunities in Climate and Groundwater at UNSW Sydney 2025-2027 Last updated: 21st July 2025 The Australian Research Council Laureate Fellowship ‘Caves and their stalagmites: linking climate to groundwater recharge’ awarded to Andy Baker (UNSW Sydney, Australia) has opportunities for PhD projects in the following areas. PhD positions are for start in 2025 to 2027 and will remain open until filled. PhD 1: Using long-term […]

8 months ago 0 0 0 0

Ongoing Cave Climate Data Collection in Australia Back in 2020, in the depths of COVID lockdowns here in Australia, the Australasian Cave and Karst Management Association organised a cave climate ‘baseline monitoring’ project. At that time, numerous tourist caves were closed to visitors. The opportunity was taken to record the cave climate. Data loggers were calibrated and shipped to the participating cave […]

9 months ago 0 0 0 0

Presenting the weather behind groundwater recharge events at AMOS2025 AMOS – the Australian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society – meet annually. This year was the 31st AMOS conference, and my 1st. This week, I have been learning about compound weather events, extreme rainfall, and how climate drivers such as La Nina influence Australian rainfall. Why am I interested? We (Stacey Priestley, Margaret Shanafield, Wendy Timms, […]

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Groundwater recharge and climate recharge research fieldwork update Yarrangobilly and Wombeyan were the locations for fieldwork in the the last few days, with thanks to the management and staff at both cave reserves. The field team was myself, Dr Kashif Mahmud (MSU Texas https://kashifmahmud.wixsite.com/kashif-mahmud/about-me) and Jocelyn McGrade (UNSW). The aims for the week included the download of hydrology loggers that had been recording […]

10 months ago 0 0 0 0

Almost five years of cave climate monitoring in Australia and New Zealand It was back in 2020 and COVID lockdowns that ACKMA, the Australasian Cave and Karst Management Association, decided to lead a volunteer, citizen science project to measure the ‘baseline cave climate’. That is, to collect data for the first time for tourist caves which were temporarily closed at the start of the pandemic. Move forward […]

11 months ago 0 0 0 0

Historical holes: Beneath the surface, caves hold the key to Australia’s wildfire history My colleague Dr. Micha Campbell recently held a postdoctoral research grant from AINSE. They’ve just released this 2025 Research Spotlight for early career researcher awardees all about her fire research. I think this is nicely done. If you’d like to know how caves and cave stalagmites can be used to reconstruct records of past fires, […]

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How to degrade naphthalene? Postgraduate researcher Ze Li joined my lab group last year, and I have been enjoying collaborating with him as he explored new methods to chemically degrade the pollutant naphthalene. Ze has led this paper where he explores a novel approach for degrading naphthalene, a persistent water pollutant, using a partially oxidised cobalt-based metal-organic framework (MOF) […]

1 year ago 0 0 0 0

Debunking Risks of Coliforms in Bottled Water Last week I received an e-mail from a former industry partner from around two decades ago, kindly alerting me to this paper: ‘Fluorescence characteristics of dissolved organic matter (DOM) in bottled drinking water of different countries: A potential risk to public health’. It was just published in Water Environment Research by researchers from Jahangirnagar University, […]

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Rainfall recharge thresholds decrease after an intense fire over a near surface cave We are excited to see this research available as a preprint and open for community discussion. Led by Christina Song, Micheline Campbell and myself, we reanalyse data collected as part of a fire experiment. Cave monitoring before and after an intense fire included hydrology measurements. However, they were not analysed to determine how much rainfall […]

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Tech Talk Insights: Hydrogeology Presentation Recap On the 11th March I was delighted to be invited to give the March Tech Talk for the International Association of Hydrogeologists NSW Branch, in person and online. The title was “Linking climate to groundwater recharge – the view from underground”. If that sounds of interest, and you missed the presentation, then the slide set […]

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Linking climate to groundwater recharge – the view from underground I’ve been invited to present to the International Association of Hydrogeologists, Australian New South Wales section, on Tuesday 11th March. If the title above sounds interesting, details are below, non members are welcome and the event is hybrid. You can read more at: https://www.iah.org.au/events/40640/ Linking climate to groundwater recharge – the view from underground Presented […]

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Groundwater recharge: abstract submissions are open for IAH 2025 in Melbourne Calling all researchers and practitioners interested in how groundwater is replenished! There is now a groundwater recharge theme at the IAH 2025 Congress in Melbourne in September. If you are interested in presenting, the deadline for abstracts is the end of February. Or, register and come and hear the latest understandings in groundwater recharge. And […]

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Groundwater recharge of fractured rock aquifers in SE Australia is episodic and controlled by season and rainfall amount The National Groundwater Recharge Observing System (NGROS) team have this new preprint published online. You can read it here https://www.authorea.com/users/871503/articles/1252406-groundwater-recharge-of-fractured-rock-aquifers-in-se-australia-is-episodic-and-controlled-by-season-and-rainfall-amount. In the preprint, led by Stacey Priestley (CSIRO), we discuss the first results from Australia’s NGROS network. This network uses loggers in underground spaces such as caves, tunnels and mines, to observe potential recharge events. […]

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GenAI literacy for use in data analysis Last year, I was invited to contribute a ‘postcard of practice’ on my engagement with generative AI in university teaching at UNSW. UNSW have just released these online ‘postcards’ at the website below. Each postcard offers a practical example: for example, how GenAI can be used for assessment and feedback, highlighting good practices that transform […]

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Postdoctoral position in climate science at UNSW Sydney My colleague Andréa Taschetto and I are recruiting. Are you familiar with climate model simulations? Are you interested in extreme rainfall events: those that generate groundwater recharge? Are you interested in ENSO? We are investigating the links between climate drivers such as ENSO, high magnitude rainfall events and groundwater recharge, to help understand how climate […]

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New Scientist story on cave records of past fire Any thanks to Liza McDonough (ANSTO) for agreeing to be interviewed for this article, which includes a summary of our recent Australian Research Council funded project to reconstruct past fire history using cave stalagmites. We used the inorganic elements preserved in stalagmites and whose source is wildfire ash deposited on the surface above the cave. […]

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Explore AGU Paleo Section Awards: Contribute to Science The American Geophysical Union Fall Meeting (#AGU24) is next week. Which means that it is time for my regular e-mail on behalf of the AGU Paleoceanography and Paleoclimatology section to say: please consider nominating someone for one of the section awards in 2025. Nominations open in the new year. Not an AGU member and thinking […]

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Water isotope inter-laboratory comparision Every few years the International Atomic Energy Association co-ordinate a global inter-lab comparison of water isotope labs. This year it was time for WICO 2024 – the latest IAEA Water Stable Isotope Intercomparison. This huge effort from the IAEA team involves sending ‘unknown’ water samples to participating labs around the world. The labs then send […]

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Celebrating Australian Laureate Fellowship Recipients Last week I had the honour of attending the ARC’s annual Laureate Pin Ceremony, celebrating Australian Laureate Fellowship recipients and Industry Laureate Fellowship recipients. It was wonderful to celebrate with family and meet old and new colleagues. I received my pin in Australia’s Parliament House in Canberra from the Federal Member for Canberra, Ms Alicia […]

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