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Victorian Tall Eucalypt Forest Plot Network: Victorian Central highlands fire refuges project: Fire severity predictions and maps for the O’Shannassy and Maroonndah Water Catchments, Victoria, Australia, 2002-2009

We used a case study in an Australian wet montane forest to establish how predictive fire simulation models can be interpreted as management tools to identify potential fire refuges. We tested the ability of a topographically based fire prediction model developed by Mackey et al (2002) in the O’Shannassy and Maroondah water catchments, NE north-east of Melbourne, Australia, with fire severity data collected following a large wildfire in 2009 in the same area. We derived our fire severity data from a larger map created by the Department of Sustainability and Environment (2009), using SPOT satellite imagery and the normalised-burnt ratio. We examined the relationship between the probability of fire refuge occurrence as predicted by an existing fire refuge model and fire severity experienced during a large wildfire. We also examined the extent to which local fire severity was influenced by fire severity in the surrounding landscape. We used a combination of statistical approaches including generalised linear modelling, variogram analysis and receiver operating characteristics and area under the curve analysis (ROC AUC).


We found that the amount of unburnt habitat and the factors influencing the retention and location of fire refuges varied with fire conditions. Under extreme fire conditions, the distribution of fire refuges was limited to only extremely sheltered, fire-resistant regions of the landscape. During extreme fire conditions, fire severity patterns were largely determined by stochastic factors that could not be predicted by the model. When fire conditions were moderate, physical landscape properties appeared to mediate fire severity distribution.


Our study demonstrates that land managers can employ predictive landscape fire models to identify the broader climatic and spatial domain within which fire refuges are likely to be present. It is essential that within these envelopes, forest is protected from logging, roads and other developments so that the ecological processes related to the establishment and subsequent use of fire refuges are maintained.


Department of Sustainability and Environment (2009) Remote sensing guideline for assessing landscape-scale fire severity in Victoria’s forest estate. Unpublished technical manual., Department of Sustainability and Environment, Melbourne.

Mackey, B., D. Lindenmayer, M. Gill, M. McCarthy, and J. Lindesay. 2002. Wildlife, Fire and Future Climate: A Forest Ecosystem Analysis. CSIRO publishing, Collingwood.

Simple

Identification info

Date (Publication)
2015-03-16
Date (Revision)
2015-03-16
Edition
48

Publisher

Australian National University
10 East Road, Acton, 2601, Australian Capital Territory, Australia
Acton
Australian Capital Territory
2601
Australia

Author

Fenner School of Environment and Society, Australian National University - Stein, John (Senior Manager 1 (Research))
10 East Road, Acton, 2601, Australian Capital Territory, Australia
Acton
Australian Capital Territory
2601
Australia

Author

Fenner School of Environment and Society, Australian National University - Berry, Laurence
10 East Road, Acton, 2601, Australian Capital Territory, Australia
Acton
Australian Capital Territory
2601
Australia

Stakeholder

Fenner School of Environment and Society, Australian National University - Stein, John (Senior Manager 1 (Research))
10 East Road, Acton, 2601, Australian Capital Territory, Australia
Acton
Australian Capital Territory
2601
Australia

Stakeholder

Griffith University - Mackey, Brendan
170 Kessels Road, Nathan, 4111, Queensland, Australia
Nathan
Queensland
4111
Australia
Keywords (Discipline)
  • Fire
  • Fragmentation
ANZSRC Fields of Research
  • Climate change impacts and adaptation
  • Environmental management
GCMD Science Keywords
  • HAZARDS PLANNING

Extent

Description
The data were collected in the O’Shannassy and Maroondah Water Catchments ~ approximately 80km NE of Melbourne in Victoria, Australia
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Temporal extent

Time period
2002-01-01 2009-01-01

Resource constraints

Use limitation
The TERN Attribution-Share Alike (TERN BY-SA) Data Licence v1.0 lets others distribute, remix and build upon the work, even for commercial purposes, as long as they credit the original creator/s (and any other nominated parties) and licence any new creations based on the work under the same terms. All new derivative works will carry the same licence, so will also allow commercial use. Details are provided at https://www.tern.org.au/datalicence
Title
TERN Attribution-Share Alike (TERN BY-SA) Data Licence v1.0
Alternate title
TERN-BY-SA
Edition
1.0
Website
https://www.tern.org.au/datalicence

Access constraints
License
Use constraints
Other restrictions
Other constraints
If this data is accepted for publication, the metadata should be made live as soon as possible. However, the data should be embargoed until appropriate approval to publish has been received from whoever holds the rights to reproduce the fire severity data originally created by DSE 2009 (John Stein). Approval to reproduce the Mackey et al (2002) data can be sought from David Lindenmayer, a co-author on the original paper. These conditions must be included when licensing any derivative works.

Resource constraints

Classification
Unclassified

Distribution Information

Distributor

Distributor

Australian National University
10 East Road, Acton, 2601, Australian Capital Territory, Australia
Acton
Australian Capital Territory
2601
Australia
Distribution format
OnLine resource
http://www.ltern.org.au/knb/metacat/ltern2.288/html

Reference System Information

Reference system identifier
EPSG/EPSG:4326

Reference system type
Geodetic Geographic 2D

Metadata

Metadata identifier
urn:uuid/6cf089fd-d1ac-57bf-9543-92e0e0e7fffa

Title
TERN GeoNetwork UUID - Long Term Ecological Research Network

Language
English
Character encoding
UTF8

Point of contact

Terrestrial Ecosystem Research Network
Building 1019, 80 Meiers Rd
Indooroopilly
QLD
4068
Australia
+61 7 3365 9097

Type of resource

Resource scope
Dataset
Metadata linkage
https://geonetwork.tern.org.au/geonetwork/srv/eng/catalog.search#/metadata/6cf089fd-d1ac-57bf-9543-92e0e0e7fffa

Point of truth URL of this metadata record

Date info (Creation)
2015-03-16T00:00:00
Date info (Revision)
2017-07-11T00:00:00

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

Code
10.5281/zenodo.5652221
Website
https://github.com/ternaustralia/TERN-ISO19115/releases/tag/v1.0

 
 

Overviews

Spatial extent

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W


Keywords

ANZSRC Fields of Research
Climate change impacts and adaptation Environmental management
GCMD Science Keywords
HAZARDS PLANNING

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