Credit: Kathleen Harvey

In January 2003 lightning struck McIntyre's Hut in Brindabella National Park, near Canberra. Four fires began to burn, eventually creating the firestorm that devastated the Australian Capital Territory (ACT).

This was an unprecedented disaster, which resulted in the loss of four lives, 500 homes and severe damage to 70% of the ACT's pastures, forests and nature reserves. Kathleen Harvey, a volunteer with the New South Wales Rural Fire Service, helped battle the inferno. She joined up in 2000, and by helicopter, fire truck and foot, has since fought fires from the Snowy Mountains to the south coast of New South Wales.

When she's out there, she's focussed on getting the job done - saving people, houses, livestock and the environment. Harvey, a PhD student at the University of Canberra, says that her passion for protecting the environment is a theme that runs through both her professional and private life.

She is a geologist who studies landscapes, looking at changes in the water balance, often caused by deforestation. This causes groundwater to rise, bringing salt to the surface, and can result in erosion and further damage to the environment and agriculture.

The solutions are not simple and every landscape is different. This is where Harvey comes in. Her research is part of a larger NSW government project with the goal of revealing how water moves through landscapes.

The study will provide guidelines on where to plant and what agricultural activities to undertake. Solutions may include revegetation or 'strategic grazing' of livestock to keep water cycling and ultimately boost the health of soils.

"People don't see geology as an environmental science, but geology gives you a good grounding in understanding an ecosystem," says Harvey, who also likes to rock climb, snorkel and go caving. "All of them seem to revolve around rocks," she says.