Fire and weeds in the Top End | Northern Australia Environmental Research Portal

The challenge

Parts of northern Australia’s valuable landscape have been transformed by weeds and changed fire patterns. Coupled with land clearing for agricultural development, this has impacted significantly on ecological, social and cultural assets.

One example is the Northern Territory’s greater Darwin region and Daly River catchment, where areas of the tropical savanna have been invaded by weeds that threaten native plants and animals and impede access to parts of the landscape. Some weeds also carry high fuel loads, ultimately leading to more intense fires.

Invasion by grassy weeds and the resulting changes in fire regimes has the ability to significantly alter ecosystem processes and may eventually lead to ecosystem failure. However, our current understanding about the combined impacts of these threats and the action needed to improve ecosystem function is limited.

How will this research help?

This project will draw on existing information about the impacts of land clearing, weed invasion and changes to fire patterns on the natural landscape. Researchers will collect additional data and use collated information to model the likely scenarios of changes in ecosystem function over the next 30 years in the Darwin and Daly regions. This understanding is critical to land use planning and management to predict, and hopefully prevent, ecosystem failure as well as to improve fire safety for people and infrastructure.

Anticipated outcomes

Better planning and management practices based on an improved ability to predict catchment scale changes that may lead to ecosystem failure.
Assessment of the use of fire behaviour models and fire spread simulators for northern Australia.
Revised conceptual models of savanna transformation following invasion by invasive grasses.
Improved understanding of the impact of invasive grasses on ecosystems and how this relates to the severity of invasion and fire impacts.
Evidence-based advice on how to account for gamba grass-invaded savanna in the Federal Government’s Carbon Farming Initiative’s Savanna Burning Methodology.