Dr Melissa Parsons is a river scientist. She works at the interface between theoretical and applied science, with a view to supporting decision-making in water resource management. Much of her research examines the scales at which organisms and physical features are distributed in river landscapes and the factors that influence those distributions. Melissa’s research has also examined concepts of resilience in river and floodplain ecosystems, and the ways that resilience thinking can be applied to enhance river and floodplain management outcomes.
Melissa has worked on numerous rivers and floodplain ecosystems in Australia, including the rivers of the Upper Murrumbidgee Catchment, the Warrego River and the Lower Balonne floodplain. Between 2002 and 2007 Melissa was a Post-Doctoral Fellow at the University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa, where she examined responses of the Sabie River, Kruger National Park, to a large flood disturbance
