Research for better land management

A better understanding of the trade-offs involved in the management of landscape fire and prescribed burning is required as public and professional expectations of fire agencies and land managers continues to rise. Tools that standardise risk assessment across different vegetation types, management objectives, agencies and communities are useful to ensure threats are recognised and treated in the same way.

Addressing this is research described in Hazard Note 14, which is an overview of the Prescribed burning and catchment management cluster of research projects. This cluster has three linked studies:

• Optimisation of fuel reduction burning regimes for fuel reduction, carbon, water and vegetation outcomes
• Savanna fire management for north Australia
• From hectares to tailor-made solutions for risk management 

These projects will improve the efficacy of prescribed burn programs by providing better tools for land managers. Download the Hazard Note via the link above. More information about each project is available on the project pages, including completed reports referred to in the Hazard Note.

Additionally, the short videos below feature researchers Dr Mana Gharun (University of Sydney) and Dr Andrew Edwards (Charles Darwin University) discussing why the research is important and the main problems the research is trying to solve.