Modelling greenhouse gas emissions from land cover change: linking continental data with point/patch models

Australia, in compiling the annual National Greenhouse Gas Inventory, needs to account for emissions in the Inventory’s Forests and Grasslands Conversion subsector resulting from land management activities since 1970. Clearing of land makes a significant but poorly quantified contribution to these emissions. Rates of land cover change (clearing and regrowth) since 1970 are currently being documented at the landscape scale from remotely sensed data. A method is presented using a 30 year one hectare level resolution data set to improve estimates of emissions from land clearing for the National Greenhouse Gas Inventory. The method is suitable for linking landscape scale disturbance histories derived from remotely sensed data to point or patch models of carbon fluxes to establish losses and gains of carbon continentally.