Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
Study area for the agricultural land-cover change for the Australian continent 1990/91-1995 project.
Figure 8.1
intensive LU zone comprises some 288
ha, representing approximately 38% of the Australian
continent, and is where most land clearing has taken place. Outside this zone in the Australian
outback, the land-cover (LC) is disturbed but relatively intact (Graetz et al., 1995). The project
produced change maps for 156 pairs of Thematic Mapper (TM) scenes, which showed that clearing
for agriculture and development activities over the study period totaled approximately 1.2
¥
10
6
¥
10
6
ha (308,000 ha/year). The results indicated that more than 80% of the clearing for agriculture was
taking place in the state of Queensland (Figure 8.2) and that the annual rates of clearing for the
continent were almost 210,000 ha, or 40% lower than the figures compiled for the first NGGI.
Figure 8.2
Distribution of clearing (ha) of woody vegetation from 1990/91-1995 for agriculture, grazing, and
development in Australia.
