Research
We work on balancing the conservation of marine ecosystems with human uses of the oceans
The future of ocean and coastal biodiversity is uncertain. This uncertainty threatens humanity's place on the blue planet. We urgently need to adapt human uses of the ocean to conserve its ecosystems and ensure it continues to provide us with food, energy, recreation, clean water and clean air.
We are marine scientists who use quantitative tools to inform environmental decisions in the oceans. We do this by bringing ecological complexity to the planning tools used to inform decision making. We work with decision makers to provide quantitative advice on ocean and coastal conservation and fishery management. Our tools of choice are computer programming, mathematical models and statistical analysis. These tools allow us to work with complex datasets to find solutions for ocean management.
We specialize in the R programming language and teach R to others. Chris' teaching resources are on this site and are open-access.
Read more about our research team or our research on our blog or check out our publications.
Future research opportunities
Current projects
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Predicting coastal ecological futures in an era of unprecedented change
Chris is currently funded by the Australian Research Council (2021-2025) Future Fellowship. His project aims to study how we can predict unprecedented ecological futures
Team: A/Prof Chris Brown
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Global Prioritization of Mangrove Conservation and Restoration incorporating future Climate Change Impacts
The Global Wetlands Projet team is working with the World Wildlife Fund to identify how sea level rise will impact mangrove conservation globally
Team: A/Prof Chris Brown, Prof Rod Connolly, Dr Fernanda Adame, Dr Christina Buelow
Past projects
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Global wetlands project
Team: A/Prof Chris Brown, Prof Rod Connolly and many others
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Predicting interactive effects of multiple stressors on marine ecosystems
Team: Dr Chris Brown (lead), Professor Rod Connolly (Simon Fraser University), Professor Isabelle Cote
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Risks & Opportunities for the Blue Economy
Team: Dr Mischa Turschwell, Dr Chris Brown, Dr Beth Fulton (CSIRO), Dr Myriam Lacharite (UTas), and many others
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Improved monitoring and management of Pacific tuna fisheries
Team: Dr Chris Brown and The Nature Conservancy
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Economic environmental accounting
Team: Dr Jim Smart (economics), Professor Sue Jackson (social science), Dr Chris Brown and Ms Chantal Saint Ange
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Tools to assess cross-sector interactions in the Blue Economy
Team: Dr Mischa Turschwell (lead), Dr Chris Brown, Dr Beth Fulton (CSIRO) and many others
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Predicting fisheries change from cumulative impacts to aquatic habitats.
Team: Dr Chris Brown
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Fishscape: a global database of fish habitat associations
Team: Dr Chris Brown
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Ridge to reef fisheries management
Team: Dr Chris Brown, Dr Carissa Klein, Prof Hugh Possingham and many others
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Predicting trade-offs between marine conservation and fisheries
Team: Dr Chris Brown