Quantifying the relative importance of greenhouse gas emissions from current and future savanna land use change across northern Australia

M Bristow; LB Hutley; J Beringer; SJ Livesley; AC Edwards; SK Arndt

Journal article

Quantifying the relative importance of greenhouse gas emissions from current and future savanna land use change across northern Australia

M Bristow, LB Hutley, J Beringer, SJ Livesley, AC Edwards, SK Arndt

Biogeosciences | COPERNICUS GESELLSCHAFT MBH | Published : 2016

DOI: 10.5194/bg-13-6285-2016

Abstract

The clearing and burning of tropical savanna leads to globally significant emissions of greenhouse gases (GHGs); however there is large uncertainty relating to the magnitude of this flux. Australia's tropical savannas occupy the northern quarter of the continent, a region of increasing interest for further exploitation of land and water resources. Land use decisions across this vast biome have the potential to influence the national greenhouse gas budget. To better quantify emissions from savanna deforestation and investigate the impact of deforestation on national GHG emissions, we undertook a paired site measurement campaign where emissions were quantified from two tropical savanna woodlan..

View full abstract

University of Melbourne Researchers

Stephen Livesley Author

Stefan Arndt Author

Related Projects (1)

IMPACTS OF DEFORESTATION AND AFFORESTATION ON GREENHOUSE GAS EMISSIONS, AND CARBON AND WATER RESOURCES IN THE DALY RIVER CATCHMENT, NORTH AUSTRALIA

Over the last decade, north Australia have been viewed as a potentially exploitable resource, given issues of salinisation, soil acidificati..

Grants

Awarded by Australian Research Council

Funding Acknowledgements

Financial support for this study was provided by the Australian Research Council's Linkage Project LP100100073 and Discovery Project DP0772981. Jason Beringer is funded under the Australian Research Council's Future Fellowship program (FT1110602). Support for flux data collection and archiving was provided by Peter Isaac of the Australian flux network, OzFlux (www.ozflux.org.au), which is funded by the Australian Terrestrial Ecosystem Research Network (TERN, www.tern.org.au). Chris and Bridget Schulz provided access to the property and field assistance throughout all phases of the land use change we monitored. We are grateful for the technical expertise and field assistance of Matthew Northwood and Michael Brand who maintained the eddy covariance tower. Yan-Shih Lin, Amanda Lilleyman and Allison O'Keefe provided field support during the intensive field campaigns. Thanks also to the Department of Environment for provision of savanna-specific deforestation GHG emissions data, 1990-2013 and the two reviewers who provided constructive comments on the original manuscript.