- Title:
-
Fire and Carbon Risk Management in Tall Temperate Forests
- Date:
- September 2010
- Organisations
- AFAC 2010 Conference
- Authors:
-
Dr. Steven Roxburgh, CSIRO Canberra
Stream 3
Download the presentation slides here. A summary is available from the link above. - Location:
- Australia, Australia
Overview
Wildfires contribute significantly to Australia’s total greenhouse gas emissions. The use of prescribed fire has been suggested as an effective way of mitigating such emissions, whereby short-term losses of carbon incurred through prescribed burning are offset by decreases in the intensity or extent of subsequent wildfires, leading to lower carbon emissions over the long-term.
In November 2008 a workshop was convened to test this proposition for Australian temperate forests. The analysis of regional-scale data from WA and NSW suggested limited scope for using prescribed fire to mitigate wildfire emissions in these forest types, due primarily to a low efficacy of prescribed burning (defined as the wildfire area reduced per area of planned fire). This contrasts with tropical savanna burning, where efficacy is higher and the potential for mitigating wildfire emissions more positive.
These results are discussed within the broader context of native forest management, particularly the need to integrate and assess fire management impacts and trade-offs across a range of ecosystem goods and services, such as carbon sequestration, catchment hydrology, and biodiversity. A new software tool for undertaking such analyses is introduced (the Dynamic Landscape Simulator).
