Tony Boston

Tony has expertise in geographic information systems, remote sensing, machine learning applied to environmental information, AI for land cover mapping, development of national and international data standards and systems for data collection, storage and management. Tony has extensive experience in the development of integrated national information systems based on the aggregation of data from agencies across Australia, working with a range of scientific and collections-based organisations, including geoscience and environment agencies, libraries, museums, herbaria, archives and galleries.

Tony’s APS career included over 25 years in executive roles within the Department of the Environment, National Library of Australia and Bureau of Meteorology. At the Bureau, he was responsible for the development of a national database of surface and groundwater information that underpins the Water Information Program, established under Part 7 of the Water Act 2007, and products such as the National Water Account and Australian Water Resource Assessments. As co-chair of the WMO/OGC Hydrology Domain Working Group (2013-2024), he contributed to the development of the WaterML2 international standards for hydrological data exchange.

Tony's current research interests include use of earth observations, in situ data and AI foundation models for earth science applications such as monitoring, estimating and predicting water resources, land cover and environmental change as well as the application of machine learning techniques to data classification and interpretation.

BSc (Hons), Grad. Dip. Comp. Stud., PhD