Carbon storage

Organisation:

University of Tasmania

Summary:

To enable the research, development and adoption of multiple greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions mitigation interventions for economic, environmental and social benefits of livestock grazing systems. The project will quantify the benefits of biodiversity, natural capital and environmental stewardship for enhancing grazing land management as well as quantify the economic, environmental and social effects of multiple GHG emissions whole farm abatement options. Producers will be equipped to understand regionally-specific GHG emissions mitigation practices to enable them to derive revenue from environmental services and/or natural capital markets. Increased industry use of data and evidence to inform production led outcomes will assist the red meat industry in progressing towards the CN30 target.

Organisation:

Agrimix / QUT

Summary:

Current methods to measure soil carbon in agriculture are costly and, in many cases, inaccurate due to spatial variability of farming landscapes. Agrimix, in collaboration with Australia’s leading soil and greenhouse gas institution, QUT, are developing a measure-model-verify (MMV) technology that enables lower cost and higher accuracy soil carbon measurement. The technology being trialled are eddy flux towers; an in-field device that can estimate changes in soil carbon by measuring carbon dioxide 'respired' from the soil.

Queensland University of Technology’s Program Leader, Professor Peter Grace, said even a small annual increase in topsoil carbon over the 300 million hectares of pastoral leases in Australia could potentially offset Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions from all sources.

The project will also deliver farm management tools never before available, allowing farmers to understand the ecosystem’s response to normal and extreme conditions (e.g., rain, drought) and to management decisions (e.g., rotational grazing or introduction of improved pastures).

Organisation:

QUT

Summary:

To determine if time-controlled grazing can increase soil C stocks and improve delivery of ecosystem services, leading to increased production-led environmental outcomes and more producers deriving revenue from natural capital trading markets/environmental services.

Carbon flux towers will be used to estimate the changes in carbon in the landscape by sampling the air above the paddocks on high clay soils in 500-800mm rainfall areas across 1,700km of Eastern Australia. The data will be combined with soil carbon models and remote sensing images to generate landscape-scale data for carbon markets and decision making. In addition to this, biodiversity will be monitored using bioacoustics, identifying species present from the sounds they make, with the measures compared with landscapes which do not use time controlled grazing.

Organisation:

University of Melbourne

Summary:

To quantify the value of integrating trees into livestock operations and assist farms in making informed decisions, to increase adoption of tree planting that meets objectives for enterprises as well as contributing to the CN30 target. This will be achieved through literature reviews, on-farm interviews with producers and whole farm carbon accounting and modelling of productivity impacts. The project will provide resources on the available information on the impacts of integrating trees into farming operations, with a focus on carbon and productivity benefits. A decision framework will be developed based off on-farm interviews with producers that will include resources to assist with the implementation and incorporation of adoptable products and information. Case study modelling on multiple enterprises will assist in quantifying the carbon and productivity implications of incorporating trees into farming enterprises. Read more

Organisation:

QDAF

Summary:

To quantify the productivity and ecosystems services of silvopastoral

systems (SPS), a dual management of livestock and trees as a pathway to achieving the CN30 target. The project will connect the beef and forest industries across tropical Queensland northern NSW to examine the potential of SPS to mitigate GHG emissions, enhance income diversification and increase livestock productivity, enhance land use, improve animal welfare and improve overall on-farm biodiversity.

This will be achieved through investigating optimal conditions for the establishment of SPS in native forests and pastures, improving the existing carbon calculator tools by more accurately estimating carbon sequestered in trees, evaluating the financial and economic performance of SPS as well as the potential for SPS as an alternative for mitigating woodland thickening issues.

Organisation:

Perennial (formerly Cloud Agronomics)

Summary:

This project identified whether hyperspectral-driven remote carbon measurement has accuracy comparable with that of physical soil coring and lab analysis at quantifying field-level soil organic carbon (SOC) content and demonstrate that the approach is significantly more cost effective than current approaches. The project will involve conducting field soil sampling at specific georeferenced locations in southern Australia and comparing results from carbon quantification with remotely sensed data collected using manned-aircraft flights. The outputs from the investment include a hyperspectral approach for quantifying SOC data, a report of model calibration and validation, and an economic analysis of the cost of implementing the new approach. Read final report.