Thabonithy Thayalakumaran

Updated on Oct 03, 2024

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Name Thabonithy Thayalakumaran

Dr Thabonithy Thayalakumaran is an Australian scientist in hydrology. She is a senior research scientist in hydrology at the Victorian Department of Environment and Primary Industries (DEPI).

Early life and education

Thayalakumaran was born in Jaffna, Sri Lanka where she completed her high school. She commenced undergraduate studies at the University of Peradeniya, Sri Lanka however, due to instability in the country she went to India and completed BSc (Hons) in Agriculture from Tamil Nadu Agricultural University, Coimbatore. In 1989 she returned to Sri Lanka and served as a lecturer in the Department of Soil and Water at the Eastern University.

Due to continued disturbances in the country, Thayalakumaran decided to permanently leave the country and used this opportunity to complete masters in Water Resources Engineering from the Asian Institute of Technology (AIT), Bangkok and then was employed as a research assistant at AIT for 3 years. Thayalakumaran's family migrated to New Zealand in 1999 where she completed a PhD at the Massey University with FRST scholarship from New Zealand Government while based at HortResearch, New Zealand. Later in 2002, her family migrated to Australia and she worked with CSIRO as a research scientist in Land and Water division in Townsville. In 2006, Thayalakumaran joined the Department of Primary Industries in Victoria, Australia.

Current work

Dr Thayalakumaran currently works in the Department of Environment and Primary Industries as a senior research scientist in Hydrology. Her research concentrates on developing approaches to measure whole-of-farm water management in dairy farms to improve farm water performance and associated natural resource impacts. Her research also focuses on developing physically based approaches for estimating root zone soil moisture maps from remotely sensed surface measurements in South West Victoria as well as the characterisation of major sources of uncertainty in hydrological model predictions, particularly runoff and deep percolation from an irrigated catchment in northern Victoria.

Awards

She received a DAAD Scholarship (Germany) in 1993 and ; Foundation for Research Science and Technology scholarship (New Zealand) in 1999.

Research contributions

Quantification of Root zone water fluxes in the irrigated landscape of Victoria, Australia

Integrated modelling framework for the management of irrigated landscapes-ARC joint research with University of New Castle and University of Adelaide

Salinity impacts of water trade in northern Victoria-Murray Darling Basin, Australia

Requirement for salt balance in irrigation areas of Shepparton Irrigation Region, Victoria, Australia

Better management of salinity in irrigation regions and salt loads leaving irrigation regions, North Victoria, Australia

Geochemistry and the potential for natural denitrification in the lower Burdekin aquifer, Queensland, Australia

EDTA enhanced transport of copper from contaminated vineyards and evaluating phyto-remediation as a remediation technique to clean up contaminated soils/saw dust piles in New Zealand.

Water use/nitrogen use efficiency in rice fields under different seeding methods and soil types in Thailand.

Family

Thayalakumaran is married to Dr. Nagalingam Thayalakumaran; they have one child.

Published articles

Thayalakumaran T., Lenahan, M.J., Bristow, K.L. 2014. Dissolved organic carbon in groundwater overlain by irrigated surgarcane. Groundwater (in press).

Selle, B., Minasny, B., Bethune, M.,Thayalakumaran T., Chandra, S., 2011. Applicability of Richards' equation models to predict deep percolation under surface irrigation. Geoderma 160: 569–578.

References

Thabonithy Thayalakumaran Wikipedia

(Text) CC BY-SA

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