TERN Geospatial Catalogue
Kidman Springs fire experiment 1993-2013
This dataset provides understorey herbaceous biomass, ground cover and overstorey woody cover response to different fire regimes over a twenty year period at a grassland and open woodland in the tropical savannas of northern Australia. BOTANAL was used to assess understorey herbaceous biomass. Woody canopy cover was derived from digital analysis of oblique aerial imagery taken from a helicopter at the site in 1995 and again in 2013. Woody cover (tree basal area and canopy cover) was also assessed using a bitterlich gauge on BOTANAL ground based transects in 2009. The data could be used to calibrate models of herbaceous growth and woody cover change in response to long term fire. It may be useful for assessing climate change impacts on aboveground carbon sequestration. The fire regimes tested were of varying frequency (every 2, 4 and 6 years) and season (June vs. October) of fire compared to unburnt controls on woody cover and pasture composition. Sites were open to grazing by cattle.
Simple
Identification info
- Date (Creation)
- 2014-08-08
- Date (Publication)
- 2022-03-07
- Date (Revision)
- 2014-07-14
- Edition
- 1.0
Identifier
Publisher
Author
Department of Tourism, Sports and Culture, Northern Territory Government - Cowley, Robyn ()
Charles Darwin Centre, 19 The Mall,, Darwin, NT, 800, Australia
Darwin
NT
800
Australia
- Website
- https://www.tern.org.au/
- Purpose
- Woody trees and shrubs are increasing in the grazed savannas of northern Australia. This project tested if fire could be used to manage woody cover in grazed savannas. It aims to provide recommendations on the frequency and seasonal timing of burning for effective management of woody cover and pasture composition.
- Credit
- We at TERN acknowledge the Traditional Owners and Custodians throughout Australia, New Zealand and all nations. We honour their profound connections to land, water, biodiversity and culture and pay our respects to their Elders past, present and emerging.
- Credit
- Meat and Livestock Australia provided funding for the study from 1993 to 2000.
- Status
- Completed
Point of contact
Department of Tourism, Sports and Culture, Northern Territory Government - Cowley, Robyn ()
Charles Darwin Centre, 19 The Mall,, Darwin, NT, 800, Australia
Charles Darwin Centre, 19 The Mall,
Darwin
NT
800
Australia
- Topic category
-
- Environment
- Biota
Extent
- Description
- The sites are located on the NT Department of Primary Industry and Fisheries' Victoria River Research Station, also known as Kidman Springs, 400 km south of Darwin, Northern Territory Australia, in the semi-arid tropical savannas. The study sites are in 2 paddocks - Conkerberry (open woodland) and Rosewood West (grassland). IBRA region- Ord Victoria plains
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Temporal extent
- Time period
- 1993-10-04 2013-10-17
- Maintenance and update frequency
- Not planned
- GCMD Science Keywords
- ANZSRC Fields of Research
- TERN Parameter Vocabulary
- GCMD Horizontal Resolution Ranges
- GCMD Temporal Resolution Ranges
- Keywords (Discipline)
-
- Disturbances
- Ecosystem Modelling
- Fire Ecology
- Herbivory
- Eucalypt Open Woodlands
- Fire
- Grazing Land Management
- Ground Cover
- Shrubs
- Trees
- Tussock Grassland
Resource constraints
- Use limitation
- The Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) license allows others to copy, distribute, display, and create derivative works provided that they credit the original source and any other nominated parties. Details are provided at https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
- File name
- 88x31.png
- File description
- CCBy Logo from creativecommons.org
- File type
- png
- Title
- Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Licence
- Alternate title
- CC-BY
- Edition
- 4.0
- Access constraints
- License
- Use constraints
- Other restrictions
- Other constraints
- TERN services are provided on an “as-is” and “as available” basis. Users use any TERN services at their discretion and risk. They will be solely responsible for any damage or loss whatsoever that results from such use including use of any data obtained through TERN and any analysis performed using the TERN infrastructure. <br /><br />Web links to and from external, third party websites should not be construed as implying any relationships with and/or endorsement of the external site or its content by TERN.<br /><br />Please advise any work or publications that use this data via the online form at https://www.tern.org.au/research-publications/#reporting.
Resource constraints
- Classification
- Unclassified
Distribution Information
Distributor
Distributor
Resource lineage
- Hierarchy level
- Dataset
Process step
- Description
- BOTANAL for herbaceous biomass, Bitterlich gauge for woody cover 2009, aerial image analysis for woody cover 1995 and 2013: Tothill, J.C., Hargreaves, J., and Jones, R.M. (1978). 'BOTANAL - a comprehensive sampling and computing procedure for estimating pasture yield and composition 1. Field sampling.' (CSIRO: Brisbane, Australia.) Cowley, R.A., Hearnden, M., Joyce, K., Valencia, M., Cowley, T.M., Pettit, C., and Dyer, R.M. (2014 in press). How hot? How often? Getting the fire frequency and timing right for optimal management of woody cover and pasture composition in northern Australian grazed tropical savannas. Kidman Springs Fire Experiment 1993-2013. The Rangeland Journal. Dyer, R.M. (2001). Fire and vegetation management in pasture lands of the Victoria River District, Northern Territory. Masters Thesis, The University of Queensland, Australia.
Process step
- Description
- Method Drift Description: The BOTANAL method has changed through time 1. Species % yield estimation has altered during the trial. i. Originally up to 5 species were listed, but in 1997 and from 2000 to 2011 up to 6 species were listed. How these species were ranked has evolved through time. ii. From 1993-2005, usually only the top 3 species were ranked for % yield (not direct estimates). The options for ranking for the 1st, 2nd and third largest yielding species were as follows: 1. 100, 0, 0 2. 77, 23, 0 3. 70, 21, 9 4. 45.5, 45.5, 9 5. 34, 33, 33 6. Or very occasionally the 4th spp was also ranked 70, 21, 4.5, 4.5 iii. From 2007, the top three species % yields were directly estimated. iv. In 2009 direct estimates of % spp yield were made on up to 4 species v. In 2011 direct estimates of species yields were made on up to only three species vi. in 2013 direct estimates of % spp yield were made on up to 4 species The direct estimate of % yield is more accurate than ranking yield. Estimating % yield for 4 species will tend to mean more species are individually assessed for yield, but this should not affect statistics through time, as minor species tend to be grouped into functional groups for analysis. 2. Yield was initially estimated (1994 - 2007) as a score between 0 and 60, but is now directly estimated. Grazing score has only been collected since 2007. Related publications with methods listed Cowley, R.A., Hearnden, M., Joyce, K., Valencia, M., Cowley, T.M., Pettit, C., and Dyer, R.M. (2014 in press). How hot? How often? Getting the fire frequency and timing right for optimal management of woody cover and pasture composition in northern Australian grazed tropical savannas. Kidman Springs Fire Experiment 1993-2013. The Rangeland Journal. Dyer, R.M. (2001). Fire and vegetation management in pasture lands of the Victoria River District, Northern Territory. Masters Thesis, The University of Queensland, Australia.
Process step
- Description
- Sampling design: Completely Randomised Factorial Designs Photo Data Capture Repeated Measures Systematic Sampling
Process step
- Description
- Flora Sampling Technique: Oblique aerial photography Quadrat/Plot/Grid
Process step
- Description
- Measurements: Derived - Continuous Data Raw Observations - Categorical Data Raw Observations - Continuous Data
Process step
- Description
- Measurement Attributes: Biomass Cover
Reference System Information
- Reference system identifier
- EPSG/EPSG:4326
- Reference system type
- Geodetic Geographic 2D
Metadata
- Metadata identifier
- urn:uuid/cc81869d-e04f-4565-bc54-3d08c37ea091
- Language
- English
- Character encoding
- UTF8
Point of contact
Type of resource
- Resource scope
- Dataset
- Metadata linkage
-
https://geonetwork.tern.org.au/geonetwork/srv/eng/catalog.search#/metadata/cc81869d-e04f-4565-bc54-3d08c37ea091
Point-of-truth metadata URL
- Date info (Creation)
- 2014-08-08T00:00:00
- Date info (Revision)
- 2023-01-08T22:37:09
Metadata standard
- Title
- ISO 19115-1:2014/AMD 1:2018 Geographic information - Metadata - Fundamentals
- Edition
- 1
Metadata standard
- Title
- ISO/TS 19115-3:2016
- Edition
- 1.0
Metadata standard
- Title
- ISO/TS 19157-2:2016
- Edition
- 1.0
- Title
- Terrestrial Ecosystem Research Network (TERN) Metadata Profile of ISO 19115-3:2016 and ISO 19157-2:2016
- Date (published)
- 2021
- Edition
- 1.0
Identifier
Overviews
Spatial extent
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Provided by
Associated resources
Not available