David Chittleborough

Biography

Professor Chittleborough’s main interests are in hydropedology, the interaction between soils and water and influence of this interaction on soil formation and landscape evolution and flows of water, collloids and particulates from soils into streams and water storages.

He has made particular contributions to the origin and nature of environmental colloids and nano-particulates, their mobility in porous media and their influence on transport of organics and phosphorus through soils. These studies involved extensive installations in the field and intensive monitoring involving in-stream and soil throughflow collectors. Grant finance has been from the Australian Research Council, Government agencies with Industry cooperation.

Professor Chittleborough has had research management experience. He was a Program Manager in the Cooperative Research Centres for Plant-based management of Dryland Salinity and the CRC Soil Conservation. He has teamed with Professor W. Meyer to establish an Ecosystem Observatory at Calperum Station near Renmark in South Australia where this , and four other Australian sites, are being upgraded to a Critical Zone Observatory (CZO) the first such observatories in Australia and which will be part of a global set of such Observatories..

Professor Chittleborough is also an Adjunct Professor in Pedology & Biochemistry, University of Adelaide..

Potential research projects for HDR and Honours students

• Carbon sequestration in soils
• Geochemistry of soils
• Improving the productivity of sandy soils for cereal and pasture production
• Paleosols: ancient soils as indicators of past climates
• Biogenesis of soils: the role of plants in soil development and landscape evolution
• Wetland restoration:
• Soil and vegetation evolution on the Cooloola sand dune complex

Expert Commentary

Professor David Chittleborough's specialist areas of knowledge include mineralogy of clays by x-ray diffraction, analysis of organo-mineral complexes, soil survey and classification, mass balance techniques for analysis of soil and regolith development, nano- and micro-particulate separation by centrifugal methods e.g. sedimentation field-flow fractionation, disk centrifugation, optical petrology of soils, sediments and regolith.