Published works

Prescribed burns are a land management tool used for reducing fuel loads in terrestrial ecosystems. Under extended drier, hotter weather conditions they might be used increasingly and more widely to help manage risk of wildfire and subsequent damage to life, property and natural assets. They also represent a form of disturbance to ecosystems, including their biodiversity and biogeochemistry. From a biogeochemistry perspective, we apply the FullCAM carbon accounting model to eucalypt open forest sites in the greater Blue Mountains region that underwent prescribed burns and fieldwork campaigns in 2019. Field data were used to derive values and estimates that guided model calibration and helped to explore the suitability of FullCAM for simulating the effect of prescribed burning on this ecosystem type. The diameter at breast height of overstorey and understorey trees, leaf area index and surface litter fractions were key measurements for estimating production, allocation, turnover (litter input to surface debris) and breakdown (output from surface debris) of carbon pools of forest components and hence, for calibrating FullCAM. Measurements for paired burnt/unburnt plots were key to estimating loss of carbon from forest component pools to the atmosphere due to prescribed fire. Simulation of unburnt forest component pools were reasonable as a calibration, although improvements in simulating fractions of surface litter would probably improve simulations of the effect of prescribed fire on forest component pools. Recommendations related to collection of field data and to model structure are made to improve alignment between model-data comparisons.