Valerie’s research focusses on coastal ecosystem conservation and restoration. She holds an AXA-UNESCO research fellowship on mangrove community forestry for resilient coastal livelihoods, endorsed as an action of the UN Ocean Decade. She co-leads a National Environmental Science Program (NESP) project on carbon abatement and biodiversity enhancements from controlling feral ungulates in wetlands in Australia and is developing a framework to measure verified biodiversity benefits in coastal wetland restoration projects in partnership with CSIRO. She recently led a NESP project on coastal wetland restoration opportunities in Australia for blue carbon and co-benefits for biodiversity, fisheries, water quality, and coastal protection and an Australian Research Council linkage project to identify social and ecological conditions that enable effective mangrove conservation over global and regional scales with partners at The Nature Conservancy and Healthy Land and Water. She has published research on the drivers of global mangrove losses and gains and coastal wetland restoration opportunities. She has co-authored international guidelines on mangrove restoration with Conservation International and incorporation of coastal wetlands into national greenhouse gas inventories with the Australian Government International Blue Carbon Partnerships. Valerie is an experienced ecologist and is a board member of the Society of Ecological Restoration Australasia and a representative of Australia’s Restoration Decade Alliance.
Journal Article: Opportunities for blue carbon restoration projects in degraded agricultural land of the coastal zone in Queensland, Australia
Rowland, Phebe I., Hagger, Valerie and Lovelock, Catherine E. (2023). Opportunities for blue carbon restoration projects in degraded agricultural land of the coastal zone in Queensland, Australia. Regional Environmental Change, 23 (1) 42, 1-42. doi: 10.1007/s10113-022-02013-y
Journal Article: Drivers of global mangrove loss and gain in social-ecological systems
Hagger, Valerie, Worthington, Thomas A., Lovelock, Catherine E., Adame, Maria Fernanda, Amano, Tatsuya, Brown, Benjamin M., Friess, Daniel A., Landis, Emily, Mumby, Peter J., Morrison, Tiffany H., O’Brien, Katherine R., Wilson, Kerrie A., Zganjar, Chris and Saunders, Megan I. (2022). Drivers of global mangrove loss and gain in social-ecological systems. Nature Communications, 13 (1) 6373, 1-16. doi: 10.1038/s41467-022-33962-x
Journal Article: Editorial: Drivers of mangrove forest change and its effects on biodiversity and ecosystem services
Howard, Jennifer, Andradi-Brown, Dominic A., Hagger, Valerie, Sasmito, Sigit D. and Bosire, Jared (2022). Editorial: Drivers of mangrove forest change and its effects on biodiversity and ecosystem services. Frontiers in Forests and Global Change, 5 989665. doi: 10.3389/ffgc.2022.989665
(2023–2025) Reef and Rainforest Research Centre Limited
(2023–2025) AXA Research Fund
Prioritising Coastal Wetland Restoration using bundled Ecosystem Services Phase 1
(2023) Noosa Council
Rowland, Phebe I., Hagger, Valerie and Lovelock, Catherine E. (2023). Opportunities for blue carbon restoration projects in degraded agricultural land of the coastal zone in Queensland, Australia. Regional Environmental Change, 23 (1) 42, 1-42. doi: 10.1007/s10113-022-02013-y
Drivers of global mangrove loss and gain in social-ecological systems
Hagger, Valerie, Worthington, Thomas A., Lovelock, Catherine E., Adame, Maria Fernanda, Amano, Tatsuya, Brown, Benjamin M., Friess, Daniel A., Landis, Emily, Mumby, Peter J., Morrison, Tiffany H., O’Brien, Katherine R., Wilson, Kerrie A., Zganjar, Chris and Saunders, Megan I. (2022). Drivers of global mangrove loss and gain in social-ecological systems. Nature Communications, 13 (1) 6373, 1-16. doi: 10.1038/s41467-022-33962-x
Editorial: Drivers of mangrove forest change and its effects on biodiversity and ecosystem services
Howard, Jennifer, Andradi-Brown, Dominic A., Hagger, Valerie, Sasmito, Sigit D. and Bosire, Jared (2022). Editorial: Drivers of mangrove forest change and its effects on biodiversity and ecosystem services. Frontiers in Forests and Global Change, 5 989665. doi: 10.3389/ffgc.2022.989665
Lovelock, Catherine E., Adame, Maria Fernanda, Bradley, Jennifer, Dittmann, Sabine, Hagger, Valerie, Hickey, Sharyn M., Hutley, Lindsay, Jones, Alice, Kelleway, Jeffrey J., Lavery, Paul, Macreadie, Peter I., Maher, Damien T., McGinley, Soraya, McGlashan, Alice, Perry, Sarah, Mosley, Luke, Rogers, Kerrylee and Sippo, James Z. (2022). An Australian blue carbon method to estimate climate change mitigation benefits of coastal wetland restoration. Restoration Ecology, 31 (7) e13739. doi: 10.1111/rec.13739
High-resolution mapping of losses and gains of Earth’s tidal wetlands
Murray, Nicholas J., Worthington, Thomas A., Bunting, Pete, Duce, Stephanie, Hagger, Valerie, Lovelock, Catherine E., Lucas, Richard, Saunders, Megan I., Sheaves, Marcus, Spalding, Mark, Waltham, Nathan J. and Lyons, Mitchell B. (2022). High-resolution mapping of losses and gains of Earth’s tidal wetlands. Science, 376 (6594), 744-749. doi: 10.1126/science.abm9583
Eger, Aaron M., Earp, Hannah S., Friedman, Kim, Gatt, Yasmine, Hagger, Valerie, Hancock, Boze, Kaewsrikhaw, Ratchanee, Mcleod, Elizabeth, Moore, Abigail Mary, Niner, Holly J., Razafinaivo, Frida, Sousa, Ana I., Stankovic, Milica, Worthington, Thomas A., Bayraktarov, Elisa, Saunders, Megan, Vergés, Adriana and Reeves, Simon (2022). The need, opportunities, and challenges for creating a standardized framework for marine restoration monitoring and reporting. Biological Conservation, 266 109429, 1-8. doi: 10.1016/j.biocon.2021.109429
Ecological forecasts to inform near‐term management of threats to biodiversity
Tulloch, Ayesha I. T., Hagger, Valerie and Greenville, Aaron C. (2020). Ecological forecasts to inform near‐term management of threats to biodiversity. Global Change Biology, 26 (10) gcb.15272, 5816-5828. doi: 10.1111/gcb.15272
Hagger, Valerie, Wilson, Kerrie, England, Jacqueline R. and Dwyer, John M. (2019). Water availability drives aboveground biomass and bird richness in forest restoration plantings to achieve carbon and biodiversity cobenefits. Ecology and Evolution, 9 (24) ece3.5874, 14379-14393. doi: 10.1002/ece3.5874
Use of seasonal forecasting to manage weather risk in ecological restoration
Hagger, Valerie, Dwyer, John, Shoo, Luke and Wilson, Kerrie (2018). Use of seasonal forecasting to manage weather risk in ecological restoration. Ecological Applications, 28 (7), 1797-1807. doi: 10.1002/eap.1769
Integrating diverse social and ecological motivations to achieve landscape restoration
Jellinek, Sacha, Wilson, Kerrie A., Hagger, Valerie, Mumaw, Laura, Cooke, Benjamin, Guerrero, Angela M., Erickson, Todd E., Zamin, Tara, Waryszak, Pawel and Standish, Rachel J. (2018). Integrating diverse social and ecological motivations to achieve landscape restoration. Journal of Applied Ecology, 56 (1), 246-252. doi: 10.1111/1365-2664.13248
What motivates ecological restoration?
Hagger, Valerie, Dwyer, John and Wilson, Kerrie (2017). What motivates ecological restoration?. Restoration Ecology, 25 (5), 832-843. doi: 10.1111/rec.12503
Hagger, Valerie, Fisher, Diana, Schmidt, Susanne and Blomberg, Simon (2013). Assessing the vulnerability of an assemblage of subtropical rainforest vertebrate species to climate change in south-east Queensland. Austral Ecology, 38 (4), 465-475. doi: 10.1111/j.1442-9993.2012.02437.x
Drivers of global mangrove loss and gain
Hagger, Valerie, Lovelock, Catherine and Saunders, Megan (2022). Drivers of global mangrove loss and gain. The University of Queensland. (Dataset) doi: 10.48610/233461e
Improving outcomes and delivering multiple benefits in ecological restoration
Hagger, Valerie (2020). Improving outcomes and delivering multiple benefits in ecological restoration. PhD Thesis, School of Biological Sciences, The University of Queensland. doi: 10.14264/uql.2020.557
Seasonal forecast results for restoration case studies
Hagger, Valerie (2018). Seasonal forecast results for restoration case studies. The University of Queensland. (Dataset) doi: 10.14264/uql.2018.308
(2023–2025) Reef and Rainforest Research Centre Limited
(2023–2025) AXA Research Fund
Prioritising Coastal Wetland Restoration using bundled Ecosystem Services Phase 1
(2023) Noosa Council
Accelerating Adoption and Implementation of Blue Carbon in Australia
(2021–2024) CSIRO
Coastal Wetland Restoration for Blue Carbon in Northern Australia (NESP2 - RRC HUB)
(2021–2022) Reef and Rainforest Research Centre Limited
(2017–2018) Holsworth Wildlife Research Endowment