Wololla carbon budget

The carbon estimates outlined below were taken from “Wololla” a cattle property in the Desert Uplands region. The property is located approximately 20 kilometres south-west of Jericho. The property has a total area of 15,997 hectares, of which about 3,499 hectares (22%) has been cleared for grazing and established with improved pasture. The remainder 12,498 hectares (78% of the property) is uncleared and classified as remnant vegetation by the Department of Natural Resources and Mines.“Wololla” is located within the Desert Uplands Bioregion, and includes vegetation categorised in 17 Regional Ecosystems. As the property included such a wide range of Regional Ecosystems (REs) it was decided to sample only three of the REs, (marked in bold in Table 1) and to apply the information from these and other sites on similar properties, to the other REs. At each RE one general area (site) was selected to be representative of the vegetation. Trees were measured in 200m² rectangular plots called transects. 30 transects were laid out at each site. Each transect was 50 metres long and 4 metres wide, and all were laid in a north-south direction. All trees were measured in the first three transects. Dead trees, if encountered were included in the measurements. In the remaining transects, trees were measured until thirty trees of each major tree type had been measured and then, only the number of trees was counted in each transect. All trees and bushes over 1.8 metres were measured. It was assumed that trees and bushes lower than this height would be susceptible to fire and may have perished in the landscape. The stem circumference of each tree selected was measured at a height of 30 cm above the ground. From this measurement, the tree biomass was calculated using previously developed equations, which relate stem circumference, or in some cases, stem diameter, 7 to total above-ground biomass.