Webinar: Understanding trends of woody vegetation using field evapotranspiration and remote sensing

Flow-MER Fridays: Series 1 Webinar 6: Understanding trends of woody vegetation using field evapotranspiration and remote sensing

New broadscale information to identify and understand trends in vegetation response to water are required to plan where, when, and how long, to target environmental water to specific locations in order to maintain ecosystem function.

In this project we are using field collected water use data (evapotranspiration) for River red gum and Black box to calibrate the outputs of a Basin-scale remote sensing evapotranspiration model. Evapotranspiration is a surrogate for vegetation condition, and outputs of this model allow us to observe trends in vegetation condition from 2001 to current time, for each remote sensing pixel in the Murray-Darling Basin. Data can be observed at various intervals depending on the management questions, and include weekly, monthly, seasonally, annually (for example). Some questions we are exploring include:

What do existing remotely sensed models tell us about the antecedent and current condition of long-lived woody floodplain vegetation at regional and Basin-scales? - How are vegetation condition and trends related to hydrology across scales including Basin-scale? - Determine condition of long-lived woody floodplain vegetation prior to the involvement of CEWH water; - Understand the influence of environmental water on woody vegetation condition