A small hill in a red-dirt landscape covered sparsely in trees

The Arnhem Land landscape is a vast tropical savanna, with open eucalypt forests and a grassy understory. Picture: Jangari/Wikimedia Commons

Termite mounds rise out of long green grass on a plain

The area around the Adelaide River in the Northern Territory is a tropical savanna ecosystem. Picture: Getty Images

The Mueller Ranges in Western Australia’s Kimberley region are part of the larger North Australian Tropical Savanna bioregion. Picture: Shutterstock

An aerial shot of several rivers meeting in green grassland

The Mitchell River delta near Kowanyama is a vast, predominantly savanna landscape. Picture: Feral Arts/Wikimedia Commons

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From there, we’ll use Themeda’s predictions for scenario modelling of future land use and management.

Large areas of Australia’s savannas are currently designated as grazing lands, and ecological forecasting can enable us to explore management strategies for each part of the landscape.

This could include restoration, fire management and grazing practices – assessing their consequences and trade-offs for production, biodiversity and carbon storage.

Beyond its immediate applications, Themeda opens new possibilities for advancing data-driven environmental monitoring and land change modelling.

Its integration of deep learning with remote sensing can be extended to detect ecological trends, assess the impacts of extreme climate events and improve forecasts of habitat shifts.

The authors wish to acknowledge their colleagues – Dr Damien Mannion, Kabir Manandhar Shrestha and Dr Rebecca Runting, who co-authored the research on which this article is based.

This article was first published on Pursuit. Read the original article.

Australia’s vast savannas are changing, and AI is showing us how

University of Melbourne Researchers