Kim Brooksbank

Kim Brooksbank’s decade of working in soil-water management for dry-land agro-forestry has made good use of his environmental biology degree. Kim continues to combine work practice with academic rigour as he completes his PhD, which focuses on water use of Oil Mallee trees in different landscapes.

Before moving to his current position with DAFWA Albany, Kim worked in Narrogin developing decision support products to help farmers and their advisers to consider the merits trees can bring to a farming enterprise. These tools are still in use and available from the DAFWA website.

• Farm Forestry Toolbox for Oil Mallees and Sandalwood
• Agmaps land manager

Kim is mainly involved in several research projects through the DAFWA Albany office, in addition to his to PhD research. He also has a role as a facilitator of communications within the low rainfall farm forestry community.

Some of his research projects are

• quantifying catchment scale water use by mallee belt systems (RIRDC funded project DAW-101A)
• coppicing provenance trials for Broom Bush (Melaleacu uncinata) (in partnership with DEC)
• Program 3 (New Woody Crop Industries) of the CRC for Future Farm Industries investigating engineering solutions to harvest surface water for use by trees.