About
Biography
After his BSc in Geography and Geology from the University of London King’s College, Patrick went on to undertake a PhD on Quaternary landscape evolution at University College London. After completing this and holding various short-term appointments in British universities, Patrick was appointed to a Lectureship in Geography at the University of the South Pacific, an international university serving 12 Pacific Island nations, based at its main teaching campus in Suva, Fiji. Thinking he would complete his three-year contract there before returning to the UK, Patrick in fact spent 25 years there, being appointed to a Personal Chair (Professor of Oceanic Geoscience) in 1997 and then in 2009 becoming Pro Vice-Chancellor (Research and International). Patrick left the University of the South Pacific in 2010 to become Head of the School of Behavioural, Cognitive and Social Sciences at the University of New England, a position he held until joining the University of the Sunshine Coast as Professor of Geography in March 2014.
Patrick’s main research interests for the past 30 years have focused on the Pacific Basin and, as befits a true geographer, have been in a number of distinct areas. His early work on the Quaternary geology and tectonics of many islands and island groups in Fiji, Samoa, Tonga and Vanuatu still represents the latest word on many of these issues today. In 2001 in response to an invitation from the Fiji Museum, he began a collaboration that continues today and involved Patrick directing a number of excavations in Fiji, notably the seven-year program along the Rove Peninsula in southwest Viti Levu Island that involved the discovery of what is still likely to be Fiji’s first settlement at Bourewa as much as 3100 years ago. Firmly believing in the importance of community awareness, Patrick has ensured that the results of his research have been returned to the people of the land in ways that they can understand its nature and importance, something helped in the case of Fiji by his fluency in the Fijian language and his intimacy with Pacific cultural protocols.
Climate change has also been a long-term research interest of Patrick’s, focused initially on the Pacific Islands region but now more generally situated in poorer countries (the 'developing' world) and the Asia–Pacific region. Sea-level change has been another focus of this research and Patrick was a Lead Author on the most recent IPCC Report (AR5, 2014) on the chapter on 'Sea Level Change' (available at ipcc.ch). For the last few years, inspired by the manifest disconnect between donor intent, community support and adaptive action in the Pacific Islands, Patrick has started to research the processes of environmental governance in rural/peripheral areas of the Asia–Pacific region with particular emphasis on understanding what needs to happen to ensure that adaptation strategies are both effective and sustainable. A parallel interest is in oral traditions, particularly those that allude to or may encode memories of extreme events (such as volcanic eruptions, earthquakes, abrupt land submergence), and the ways that these might be used to improve adaptive strategies to future climate-driven environmental change.
Patrick’s world-class research in climate change has been extended with his appointment as Lead Author on the ‘Small Islands’ chapter of the next (6th) Assessment Report of the IPCC, scheduled for completion in 2022. He also gave Keynote Addresses at the Adaptation Futures 2018 conference in Cape Town in June 2018 and at the Climate Change and Islands Symposium, funded by the Volkswagen Foundation, in Hannover the following month. In 2019, he gave a Keynote Address on Indigenous Australian stories about sea-level rise at the 28th Annual New South Wales Coastal Conference. In 2020, he delivered a NAIDOC Week Seminar at the University of Queensland on a similar topic.
In more recent years, Patrick has continued to attend conferences, delivering the Keynote Address at the 2022 Annual Conference of the Institute of Australian Geographers in Armidale (NSW) on Memories of Thin Places: The Deep Roots of Contemporary Ecoanxiety. He also gave the Keynote Address at DevNet 2024 at the University of Otago in December 2024, talking about Shifting Development: Navigating the Future Pacific.
Teaching
Patrick regularly teaches or lectures in the following courses:
- ENP236 Regions, Change and Sustainability Regions, Change and Sustainability
- ENP245 Landscapes, Place and People Landscapes, Place and People
- GEO100 Changing Planet Earth Changing Planet Earth
- GEO340 Historical Geographies Historical Geographies
- GEO390 Advanced Geographical Studies Advanced Geographical Studies
- HIS210 Explorations in Environmental History Explorations in Environmental History
- INT250 Forces of Change in International Politics Forces of Chang in International Politics
- SUS310 Sustainability Project
Supervision: Current PhD Students
- Zoe Bridge (Climate-Aggravated Barriers to the Recognition of World-Class Tangible Heritage in the Pacific Islands)
- Carmine Buss (Reducing Individual Carbon Footprints: An Interdisciplinary Approach to Climate Change for Promoting Climate Mitigation Behaviour)
- Louisa-Anne Buwalda (Women’s experiences of natural disaster – Ni-Vanuatu women’s voices on their issues and solutions)
- Leigh Franks (Precise age determination of Indigenous Australian stories: examples of maar lake formation in Queensland)
- John Grogan (Defining and actualising 'migration with dignity' for I-Kiribati)
- Amalya Harding (Post-pandemic opportunities for enhanced food and nutrition security in the tropical Pacific)
- Tony Millroy (Baroon: A Social History, from Flinders to Federation)
- Wendy Nelson (Towards Intercultural Literacy – optimising effective and sustainable cross-cultural understandings for Australian young people)
- Pratish Raj (Integration of traditional and local knowledge into the Fiji and Vanuatu disaster risk frameworks)
- Mark Reilly (Contrasting Histories of Coastal Barrier Evolution: Indigenous and Scientific Narratives of, the Origin and Evolution of the Younghusband Peninsula (South Australia))
- Penina Waqatabu (Historical relocations of communities in Macuata Province, Fiji: attainment of water security)
- Hans Wendt (Development of strategies for water security in rural Pacific island communities: does policy or traditional practice work best?)
Recently Completed PhD Students
- Kirsty O'Callaghan (Discussing a 'man-made' problem: the role of gender in effective climate change communication)2
- Ryan Delaney (An ecocritical exploration into constructions of masculinity in contemporary Australian literature)
- Aaron Driver (Telling tales: narratives for climate change)
- Christopher Evans (Migration and Livelihood Sustainability in Fiji and Tuvalu)
- Melanie Harris (Mangrove replanting in the Pacific Islands: 'band-aid' or panacea?)
- Daniela Medina Hidalgo (Climate change vulnerability and resilience in Pacific Island Countries)
- Loredana Lancini (Crises environnementales et traditions locales: regards croisés antiquité/monde contemporain)
- David Moffitt (Application of remote sensing to the assessment of coastal susceptibility of Pacific Islands and the protection afforded by natural geographical features)
- Madeleine Page (Knowledge for climate-change adaptation in remote Queensland communities)
- Delia Siivola (Indigenous Knowledge in Protected Areas Management: Adaptation, Sustainability and Opportunities in the Circumpolar North)
- Nittya Simard (Socio-ecological impacts of developing shell handicrafts livelihoods in a coastal community, Papua New Guinea)
- Preetika Singh (Future environmental stress attributable to sea-level rise in the Nadi Delta, Fiji)
- Lila Singh-Peterson (Examining landscapes, values and livelihoods in the South Pacific and the influence of globalisation and multifunctionality activities)
- Jack Koci (Hydrogeomorphic processes driving sediment and nutrient movement in dry-tropical rangelands and implications for land management).
- Jasmine Pearson (Understanding Pacific Islander knowledge and attitudes towards changes in mangrove ecosystems and associated coastal resources).
- Annah Piggott-McKellar (Community uptake of climate-change adaptation in Kiribati and Vanuatu).
- Sarah Pye (Using biography to engage a non-specialist audience in conservation)
Potential Research Projects for HDR and Honours Students
- Understanding people's attitudes towards environmental risk (including climate change)
- Threats to traditional livelihoods in the Pacific Island countries
- Interpreting Aboriginal and other culturally-embedded myths about environmental change
- Effects of sea-level change on coastal landscapes and human systems
- Traditional coping with environmental risk and natural disasters
- Human–environment interactions, particularly in poorer Asia–Pacific countries
Professional memberships
Institute of Australian Geographers
Awards
Marion Newbigin Prize of the Royal Scottish Geographical Society, awarded in 2023 for "an outstanding contribution to the Scottish Geographical Journal entitled “First a wudd, and syne a sea: postglacial coastal change of Scotland recalled in ancient stories”
J.P. Thomson Gold Medal of the Royal Geographical Society of Queensland, awarded in May 2018
Best paper of 2016 in Australian Geographer by Geographical Society of New South Wales, awarded December 2016
Shared award of Nobel Peace Prize given to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, 2007
Herbert E. Gregory Medal of the Pacific Science Association, awarded only once every five years for the distinguished service to science in the Pacific. Awarded at the 20th Pacific Science Congress, Bangkok, Thailand, 2003
Pacific Islands team leader, International Study Team for Climate Change and Sea-Level Rise, Grand Prix (First Prize), Seventh Nikkei Global Environmental Technology Award, 1997
Engagements
Links
Awards and Honours
Organisational Affiliations
Past Affiliations
Highlights - Outputs
Journal article
An assessment of community-based adaptation initiatives in the Pacific Islands
Published 2020
Nature Climate Change, 10, 7, 628 - 639
For the Pacific Islands, community-based adaptation activities are crucial, and yet it remains uncertain whether they are effectively promoting long-term adaptive capacity. Here we evaluate the performance of 32 community-based adaptation initiatives across 20 rural communities in the Pacific. We find that initiative appropriateness was a strength while sustainability was a consistent issue, locally funded initiatives and those implemented by non-governmental organizations were more likely to perform better, and climate awareness-raising initiatives and those integrated with ecosystem-based adaptation performed best. We also identify four multidimensional and interdependent optimization points for future community-based adaptation initiatives: local approval and ownership, shared access to and benefit from initiatives, integration of local realities, and systems-thinking and forward planning. Our analysis suggests the need for a praxis shift whereby adaptation is locally led, communities drive their own agendas, and donors and implementers become facilitators that resource the diverse capacities of communities and help achieve local objectives equitably.
Journal article
Published 2020
Environmental Humanities, 12, 1, 113 - 131
As concern about sea level rise grows and optimal solutions are sought to address its causes and effects, little attention has been given to past analogs. This article argues that valuable insights into contemporary discussions about future sea level rise can be gained from understanding those of the past, specifically the ways in which coastal peoples and societies reacted during the period of postglacial sea level rise. For much of the Holocene, most continental people eschewed coastal living in favor of inland areas. In many places large coastal settlements appeared only after the development of polities and associated crosswater networks. Postglacial sea level rise affected coastal living in ways about which we remain largely ignorant. Yet, millennia-old stories from Australia and northwest Europe show how people responded, from which we can plausibly infer their motivations. Stories from Australia say the people have succeeded in halting sea level rise, whereas those from northwest Europe indicate that people have failed, leading to the drowning of coastal cities such as Ys (Brittany) and Cantre’r Gwaelod (Wales). This distinction is explained by the contrasting duration of postglacial sea level rise in these regions; around Australia, sea level stopped rising 7,000 years ago, while along many coasts of northwest Europe it has risen unceasingly since the last ice age ended. The nature of past human and societal responses to postglacial sea level rise holds important insights for the future.
Journal article
Published 2020
Regional Environmental Change, 20, 3, 1 - 13
Communities across the Pacific are being challenged by the impacts of climate change. Attaining food and nutrition security goals is also a priority for the region, particularly in relation to improving dietary quality and reducing the incidence of non-communicable diseases. Addressing these challenges requires context-specific research that incorporates a realistic understanding of the links between drivers of change, food systems, and how these influence diets and health. Using a case study approach, this study explores links between climate hazards, food systems, and diets in remote coastal villages of Fiji. Livelihood transitions and climate hazards explain why households have become less reliant on local fisheries and agriculture for their dietary needs. Most households are routinely consuming only locally sourced food items from four food groups, meaning dietary diversity is low. In addition, diets are shifting and now include significant quantities of energy-dense processed (imported) foods with lower nutritional value. The study highlights the importance of increasing availability of fruits and vegetables, mainly through local production, and diversifying sustainable sources of animal protein as strategies to increase diet quality. These communities are already implementing strategies to adapt to climate change, yet this study underscores the need to link climate adaptation with changes to food systems and diets, in ways that allow livelihoods to be sustained and the quality of life of rural dwellers to improve.
Book chapter
Islands in the Pacific: Settings, Distribution and Classification
Published 2020
Climate Change and Impacts in the Pacific, 33 - 170
Oceanic islands have a history of being misunderstood by outsiders, commonly marginalized in global synthesis and planning, their considerable diversity often understated. To capture and explain the diversity of islands in the Pacific, a classification is developing using elevation and lithology (rock type) as the highest level criteria. For each of the 1779 islands, defined as ocean-bounded landmasses ≥1 ha (0.01 km2) in area, data were collected on locations and shapes, areas, names, elevations and lithologies. Eight island types were identified-volcanic high islands (≥30 amsl, ≥80% igneous); volcanic low islands (<30 amsl, ≥80% igneous); limestone high islands (≥30 amsl, ≥80% calcareous); limestone low islands (<30 amsl, ≥80% calcareous); reef islands (≥80% unconsolidated sediments); composite high islands (≥30 amsl, <80% igneous, <80% calcareous); composite low islands (<30 amsl, <80% igneous, <80% calcareous); continental (≥80% continental rocks). The broad distribution of each island type in the Pacific can be explained by its geological history. In addition, this classification could be used as an objective basis for assessing island vulnerability to external stressors like climate change or pollution as well as a tool for national/regional planning.
Journal article
Published 2020
Regional Environmental Change, 20, 2, 43
Pacific Island Countries, despite significant variation in levels of exposure and internal adaptive capacities, are often portrayed homogenously as the world's most vulnerable region to climate change. As such over the past few decades, a plethora of projects intended to assist communities across the region adapt to future climate change have been developed, channelled through multilateral and bilateral funding mechanisms and implemented in communities across a range of countries. Whether such adaptation projects have been effective in reducing the vulnerability of targeted groups remains unclear. This paper evaluates a climate change adaptation project focused on food security implemented across two communities on Abaiang Island, Kiribati (central Pacific). The project was independently evaluated using the following criteria: appropriateness, equity, efficacy, impact, and sustainability. Data was gathered from focus groups with recipient community members (n= 84) supplemented by interviews (n= 26) with relevant local stakeholders involved in implementation. Results show that while the project inputs (such as tangible and intangible goods and services) were provided, the outcomes of the project were largely ineffective and unsustained amongst the target communities. The main lesson is that local contextual factors-be they social norms, environmental, or local governance and decision-making structures-must be clearly identified, meaningfully acknowledged, and accounted for when designing and implementing local-level adaptation initiatives. This then raises broader questions about who is currently, and who should be defining "good" adaptation. The answer to this question has ramifications for social justice as well as broader issues for developing effective sustainable responses to the challenges of climate change in such places.
Education
Identifiers
Metrics
- 183706 Total output views
- 12421 Total file downloads
- Derived from Web of Science
- 4103 Total Times Cited