Queensland: Monitoring activities
- Queensland Department of Primary Industries and Department (DPI) of Natural Resources and Mines (NRM) currently have rangeland monitoring schemes in place with programs such as TRAPS, QGRAZE and Grass Check by DPI and SLATS and Aussie GRASS by NRM.
- The Transect Recording and Processing System (TRAPS) has been progressively establishing 150 sites in woodland communities since 1982. Woody plant composition, structure and cover are determined along permanent transect belts. The herbaceous component is recorded in quadrats as described for QGRAZE below. Attributes assessed include vegetation floristics, structure and dynamics and the impacts of climate and fire and perturbations such as clearing and grazing. TRAPS data has been used to show that woody plant ?thickening? is a real and significant process occurring in Queensland?s grazed woodlands.
- Three hundred and fifty QGRAZE sites have been established since 1991, mainly located in the following native pasture communities - 44% black speargrass, 25% Aristida/Bothriochloa, 9% brigalow, 4% spinifex, 3% channel pastures, 3% bluegrass/browntop, 3% gidgee and 3% Mitchell grass. Herbaceous species frequency, frequency and size of woody species and amount of ground cover are measured within quadrats. Pasture yield (based on photographic standards), soil surface condition and tree basal areas are assessed over the general site area of 9 ha. Attributes assessed include (a) ground cover, (b) perennial grass species, (c) palatable, productive and perennial grasses (3P grasses) and (d) exotics species. These are being tested as surrogates for landscape function (a+b), grazing condition (a+c) and landscape health/biodiversity (a+b+d).
- Work is currently progressing on the database to assess the adequacy of the data to report by Native Pasture Communities, Bioregions, Catchments and Local Government Areas.
- Land managers are encouraged to implement their own monitoring and adaptive grazing management through the Grass Check (Grazier Rangeland Assessment for Self-Sustainability) program by establishing photopoints, recording species present, estimating forage availability and ground cover, and estimating the cover of woody species where present.
- The Statewide Landcover and Trees Study (SLATS) initiative has developed a satellite-based (using Landsat thematic mapper (TM) images) monitoring system to report regularly the extent, condition and trend of Queensland?s vegetation cover and land use, and provide estimates of greenhouse gas emissions in the land use and forestry sector.
- The Australian Grassland and Rangeland Assessment by Spatial Simulation project, otherwise known as Aussie Grass is a collaborative project lead by the Dept of Natural Resources and Mines. It uses advanced simulation modelling techniques to assess the condition of Australia?s rangelands. The Aussie Grass model operates across the continent on a 5 km grid basis on a daily time step. The model uses inputs of daily rainfall and climate, soil functional characteristics, vegetation characteristics, tree density and grazing pressure for each grid cell. The model simulates the processes of runoff, infiltration, deep drainage, evapotranspiration, pasture growth and senescence, litter decay, and consumption of biomass by grazing animals. Model output is often presented in percentile format, which allows users to assess current seasonal conditions relative to historical conditions.
For more Information contact Aussie GRASS.
Further Information
Link to photographic sequences
Link to Map maker to make a map using this information.
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