Sam Culley
Grant-Funded Researcher (B)
School of Architecture and Civil Engineering
Faculty of Sciences, Engineering and 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.
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Education
Date Institution name Country Title 2011 - 2014 University of Adelaide, Adelaide Australia Bachelor of Civil & Structural Engineering (Hons)
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Journals
Year Citation 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.
Scopus2 Europe PMC12024 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, 15 pages.
Scopus12021 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.
Scopus15 WoS52021 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.
Scopus24 WoS132019 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.
Scopus21 WoS152016 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.
Scopus91 WoS75 -
Conference Papers
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 Scopus12021 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.
DOI2000 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 -
Conference Items
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. -
Report for External Bodies
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. -
Software
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.
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Current Higher Degree by Research Supervision (University of Adelaide)
Date Role Research Topic Program Degree Type Student Load Student Name 2023 Co-Supervisor Quantitative Framework to Enable the Sustainable Renewable Energy Transition Doctor of Philosophy Doctorate Full Time Miss Jing Tian
Connect With Me
External Profiles