Sam Culley
Grant-Funded Researcher (B)
School of Civil Engineering and Construction
College of Engineering and Information Technology
Eligible to supervise Masters and PhD (as Co-Supervisor) - email supervisor to discuss availability.
I have completed a PhD that focused on climate change impact assessments, as applied to water resource systems. As part of my research I have developed techniques to improve these assessments including:
- Creating climate scenarios to investigate potential threats to water resource systems (foreSIGHT software)
- Identifying the critical changes in climate that will degrade systems
- Identifying operational changes to systems in response to changes in climate
This research has included the use of formal optimisation techniques, the specification of process driven and data driven models, and methods for decision making under deep uncertainty. Since completing my PhD I have had the opportunity to apply these climate change impact assessment tools to agricultural, water and energy systems.
For the past few years I have held a post-doctoral research position funded by the Future Fuels CRC. This research has focused on identifying the opportunities and barriers to the uptake of bioenergy projects in Australia. A webinar presenting an overview of this research is available here.
| Date | Institution name | Country | Title |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2011 - 2014 | University of Adelaide, Adelaide | Australia | Bachelor of Civil & Structural Engineering (Hons) |
| Year | Citation |
|---|---|
| 2025 | Leigh, R., Westra, S., Maier, H. R., Knowling, M. J., Culley, S., Daniell, K. A., . . . Brettig, P. (2025). A framework for context-aware climate risk assessments. Journal of Hydrology, 662, 133871. Scopus1 WoS1 |
| 2024 | Van Wettere, W. H. E. J., Culley, S., Swinbourne, A. M. F., Leu, S. T., Lee, S. J., Weaver, A. C., . . . Westra, S. (2024). Heat stress from current and predicted increases in temperature impairs lambing rates and birth weights in the Australian sheep flock. Nature Food, 5(3), 206-210. Scopus8 WoS6 Europe PMC4 |
| 2024 | Hosseini, T., Culley, S. A., Zecchin, A., Maier, H. R., & Ashman, P. J. (2024). Impact of co-digestion and degree of centralization on the yield and viability of biomethane production: A case study in regional Australia. Energy Conversion and Management: X, 22, 100585. Scopus5 WoS4 |
| 2024 | Tian, J., Culley, S., Maier, H. R., Zecchin, A. C., & Hopeward, J. (2024). Diagnostic Approach and Tool for Assessing and Increasing the Sustainability of Renewable Energy Projects. Sustainability, 16(24), 10871. Scopus2 WoS2 |
| 2021 | Bennett, B., Devanand, A., Culley, S., Westra, S., Guo, D., & Maier, H. R. (2021). A modelling framework and R-package for evaluating system performance under hydroclimate variability and change. Environmental Modelling and Software, 139, 104999-1-104999-18. Scopus18 WoS12 |
| 2021 | Culley, S., Westra, S., Maier, H., & Bennett, B. S. (2021). Identifying critical climate variables for use in scenario-neutral climate impact assessments. Environmental Modelling and Software, 136, 14 pages. Scopus32 WoS26 |
| 2019 | Culley, S., Bennett, B., Westra, S., & Maier, H. R. (2019). Generating realistic perturbed hydrometeorological time series to inform scenario-neutral climate impact assessments. Journal of Hydrology, 576, 111-122. Scopus25 WoS22 |
| 2016 | Culley, S., Noble, S., Yates, A., Timbs, M., Westra, S., Maier, H. R., . . . Castelletti, A. (2016). A bottom-up approach to identifying the maximum operational adaptive capacity of water resource systems to a changing climate. Water Resources Research, 52(9), 6751-6768. Scopus107 WoS94 |
| Year | Citation |
|---|---|
| 2023 | Maier, H., & Culley, S. (2023). Building capacity to achieve sustainable outcomes for wicked problems. In J. Vaze, C. Chilcott, K. Hutley, & S. M. Cuddy (Eds.), Proceedings of the 25th International Congress on Modelling and Simulation (pp. 541-547). Online: Modelling and Simulation Society of Australia and New Zealand Inc. |
| 2022 | Newman, J. P., Bennett, B., Culley, S. A., Maier, H. R., Westra, S., Thyer, M., . . . Leonard, M. (2022). Understanding Kangaroo Island water supply reliability in future climates and the path to augmentation solutions. In Hydrology and Water Resources Symposium, HWRS 2022 (pp. 934-947). Online: Engineers Australia. |
| 2021 | Maier, H. R., Guillaume, J. H. A., McPhail, C., Westra, S., Kwakkel, J. H., Razavi, S., . . . Jakeman, A. J. (2021). Uncertainty, sensitivity and scenario analysis: how do they fit together?. In Proceedings of the 24th International Congress on Modelling and Simulation (MODSIM2021) (pp. 554-560). Canberra, ACT, Australia: Modelling and Simulation Society of Australia and New Zealand. DOI Scopus1 |
| 2021 | Culley, S., Westra, S., Bennett, B., Maier, H., Newman, J., van der Linden, L., & Irvine, M. (2021). Water security analysis of the Middle River supply system: a foreSIGHT application. In Proceedings of the 24th International Congress on Modelling and Simulation (MODSIM2021) (pp. 547-553). Canberra, ACT, Australia: Modelling and Simulation Society of Australia and New Zealand Inc. DOI Scopus1 |
| 2000 | Lowe, A., McMahon, C., Shah, T., & Culley, S. (2000). AN ANALYSIS OF THE CONTENT OF TECHNICAL INFORMATION USED BY ENGINEERING DESIGNERS. In Proceedings of the ASME Design Engineering Technical Conference Vol. 4 (pp. 17-28). American Society of Mechanical Engineers. DOI Scopus12 |
| Year | Citation |
|---|---|
| 2021 | Leigh, R., Knowling, M., Westra, S., Bennett, B., Zecchin, A., Maier, H., . . . Devanand, A. (2021). A multi-modelling framework to stress-test water resource systems under change. Poster session presented at the meeting of 24th International Congress on Modelling and Simulation (MODSIM2021) Book of Abstracts. Sydney, Australia: Modelling and Simulation Society of Australia and New Zealand Inc.. |
| 2018 | Bennett, B., Culley, S., Westra, S., & Maier, H. (2018). ForeSIGHT: An R-package to Support Scenario-Neutral Climate Impact Assessments. Poster session presented at the meeting of AGU Fall Meeting Abstracts 2018, H53Q-1819. Washington, DC, USA. |
| 2018 | Bennett, B. S., Westra, S., & Culley, S. (2018). An R tool for climate resilience analysis of water resource systems. Poster session presented at the meeting of EGU General Assembly. Vienna, Austria. |
| 2018 | Culley, S. A., Westra, S., Maier, H. R., & Bennett, B. (2018). An R tool for scenario-neutral climate impact analysis of water resource systems. Poster session presented at the meeting of 9th International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software. |
| 2018 | Culley, S. A., Westra, S., Maier, H. R., & Bennett, B. (2018). Identifying the climate variables to which water resource systems are most sensitive. Poster session presented at the meeting of 9th International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software. |
| 2017 | Bennett, B. S., Culley, S., & Westra, S. (2017). Generating perturbed hydroclimate time series for use in scenario-neutral climate impact assessments. Poster session presented at the meeting of 22nd International Congress on Modelling and Simulation. Modelling and Simulation Society of Australia and New Zealand. Hobart, Tasmania, Australia. |
| Year | Citation |
|---|---|
| 2022 | Culley, S., Zecchin, A., & Maier, H. (2022). National scale assessment of viable biomethane locations in Australia: viable case studies report. |
| 2022 | Culley, S., Zecchin, A., & Maier, H. (2022). Where are the most viable locations for bioenergy hubs across Australia?. |
| 2022 | Culley, S., Zecchin, A., & Maier, H. (2022). Prototype online mapping tool: Identifying most viable sites for biomethane injection in Australia. |
| 2022 | Westra, S., Leigh, R., Knowling, M., Beh, E., Devanand, A., Thyer, M., . . . McInerney, D. (2022). Assessment of current and future water security in the Barossa and Eden Valleys. |
| 2021 | Culley, S., Zecchin, A., Hosseini, T., & Maier, H. (2021). Adelaide Case Study Report - Viability Assessment. |
| 2021 | Culley, S., Maier, H., & Zecchin, A. (2021). Final Framework Report. |
| 2020 | Culley, S., Maier, H., Zecchin, A., & Riddell, G. (2020). Methodology Report. |
| 2020 | Culley, S., Westra, S., Maier, H., Bennett, B., & Newman, J. (2020). WATER SECURITY RELIABILITY ANALYSIS OF THE MIDDLE RIVER SUPPLY SYSTEM (2020/10). |
| 2020 | Culley, S., Zecchin, A., Hosseini, T., & Maier, H. (2020). Griffith Case Study Report - Viability Assessment: Assessment framework for bio-methane injection in gas networks (RP1.2-03). Future Fuels CRC. |
| Year | Citation |
|---|---|
| 2018 | Bennett, B. S., Culley, S., Westra, S., Guo, D., & Maier, H. (2018). foreSIGHT: Systems Insights from Generation of Hydroclimatic Timeseries (Version 0.9.2) [Computer Software]. https://CRAN.R-project.org/package=foreSIGHT: CRAN. |
Research projects RP1.2-03, RP1.2-04 and RP1.2-06 in the Future Fuels CRC.
| Date | Role | Research Topic | Program | Degree Type | Student Load | Student Name |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2025 | Co-Supervisor | Assessing Renewable Energy’s Broader Sustainability Impacts. | Doctor of Philosophy | Doctorate | Full Time | Miss Aditi Rao |
| 2023 | Co-Supervisor | Quantitative Framework to Enable the Sustainable Renewable Energy Transition | Doctor of Philosophy | Doctorate | Full Time | Miss Jing Tian |
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