Published works

Many remote Indigenous communities in the tropical savannas of northern Australia reply upon “Savanna Burning” methods, as payment for ecosystem services, providing employment and supporting their livelihoods. The methods rely upon accurate science to calculate greenhouse gas emissions. The current methods use fire seasonality to discriminate emissions estimates, whereas fire severity, if mapped with adequate accuracy, will provide a greenhouse gas emissions method more appropriate to customary burning, by advantaging low severity fires, that has the added advantage of being of overall benefit to biodiversity.
In November 2018, we brought an international group of remote sensing scientists together to develop a collaborative program to increase the spatial resolution of current burnt area mapping programs and incorporate fire severity within them. This report firstly outlines the requirements for the products and summarises the findings of the workshop.