Andy Baker

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: linki…

Hi All, We are under a week away from out October tech talk! This month we will be hosting our annual student night so don't miss out. Four presenters will be giving talks on their research topics. Please see below for event details. As usual, this talk will be held in person, and online, with details to follow. Topic: Student Night Where: WSP Office Sydney - Level 27 When: Tuesday 14 October 2025 Time: 17:30 for an 18:00 start Event Info: TBC Teams Link: To be provided closer to the event Presenter: Yaggesh Sharma Title: Evaluating pond recharge potential in the Ramganga Basin with data-driven modelling approaches. Presenter: Danyang Sun Title: Classifying drip water responses in karst vadose zone: Insights from Yarrangobilly, Australia. Presenter: Nane Weber Title: Integrating karstification in large-scale hydrological simulations Presenter: Akhilesh Kumar Title: Soil Moisture and Vegetation Are Key Predictors of Precipitation-driven Groundwater Recharge at Australia’s National Groundwater Recharge Observing System (NGROS) Sites

Consulting firm quietly admitted to GPT-4o use after fake citations were found in August.

Search 4 Careers available at University of Calgary.

Members of the University and College Union (UCU) at the University of Leicester have today announced that they will take 15 days of industrial action in response to the university's plans to slash jo...

Carlos Conforti Ferreira Guedes, a geology professor at the Federal University of Paraná in Brazil, came across a paper in the Journal of South American Earth Sciences earlier this year with irrele…

Understanding how individual cities responded to climate stress will help create holistic pictures of how these societies functioned.

Today, we talk to thought leaders Helen King and Chris Leonard, who offer a nuanced look at how peer review might adapt, fracture, or reinvent itself in the AI era.

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 Australi…

Abstract. Understanding when and why groundwater recharge occurs is of fundamental importance for the sustainable use of this essential freshwater resource for humans and ecosystems. However, accurately capturing this component of the water balance is widely acknowledged to be a major challenge. Direct physical measurements identifying when groundwater recharge is occurring are possible by utilizing a sensor network of hydrological loggers deployed in underground spaces located in the vadose zone. Through measurements of water percolating into these spaces from above, we can record the potential groundwater recharge process in action. By using automated sensors, it is possible to precisely determine when recharge occurs (which event, month, or season and for which climate condition). Combined with daily rainfall data, it is possible to quantify the “rainfall recharge threshold”, the amount of rainfall needed to generate groundwater recharge, and its temporal and spatial variability. Australia's National Groundwater Recharge Observing System (NGROS) provides the first dedicated sensor network for observing groundwater recharge at an event scale across a wide range of geologies, environments, and climate types representing a wide range of Australian hydroclimates. Utilizing tunnels, mines, caves, and other subsurface spaces located in the vadose zone, the sensors effectively record “deep drainage”, water that can move beyond the shallow subsurface and root zone to generate groundwater recharge. The NGROS has the temporal resolution to capture individual recharge events, with multiple sensors deployed at each site to constrain the heterogeneity of recharge between different flow paths, and to quantify (including uncertainty bounds) rainfall recharge thresholds. Established in 2022, the network is described here together with examples of data being generated.

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 de…

It was 2021, and we were not feeling good.  COVID-19 was in full force.  Personally we were experiencing lockdown conditions, disruptions to our work, schooling and childcare arrangements.  Our social...

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 kart experts, mangers and cave gui…