This data science project aims to build on an environmental dataset from Sustainable Winegrowing Australia (SWA) and initial quantitative analysis conducted as part of a previous Food Agility project, Valuing the Environment in Viticulture, to understand the relationships between self-reported management actions, production and resource use metrics, profitability and long-term resilience.
This aim will be met through five objectives:
In addition to direct outcomes from the project, further benefit will be derived from linking the project outputs to other research endeavours, such as a natural capital risk materiality assessment, that are being conducted in parallel by other members of the team.
Ultimately, this project is designed to facilitate benchmarking and decision-making by synthesising and presenting data in a way that growers and associated stakeholders can meaningfully engage with.
The relationship between financial and environmental performance is of interest to growers and the viticulture industry, who need to adapt to and mitigate against climate change and natural capital shocks. The finance sector (agribusiness lenders and insurers) also need to report their climate risk exposure and other measures of the sustainability of their portfolios. To support high quality decision-making, both growers and financial institutions need robust, quantitative datasets and models that are applicable across the sector.
This scholarship is part of the Food Agility Industry Postgraduate Program.
The student will mostly be physically based at AWRI in Urrbrae, a suburb of Adelaide in South Australia, with travel to QUT as required and to spend a minimum time of three months at QUT during the course of candidature. At QUT, the student will be part of the Centre for Data Science.