Revegetation, including restoration and rehabilitation, is a major public-private strategy to protect natural resources, repair stressed ecosystems and habitats and is essential for maintaining sustainable production and delivery of ecosystem services. Revegetation and rehabilitation activities are funded via public or private investment, or a combination of both, at national, state and regional levels. A capacity to routinely track changes and trends in revegetation type, extent and condition at a national level has lagged behind considerable investments over several decades in on-ground strategic revegetation activities and changes in land management practices. The extent of revegetation may be derived from multiple sources including: regional surveys, remote sensing, catchment-based data and site-based inventory. States and territories use a range of methods to record and report site and landscape scale revegetation extent. Despite the development and endorsement of national standards for the tracking changes in the type, extent and condition of revegetation, these standards have not been systematically or comprehensively adopted at regional, state and national levels. The national standard was used to report on the extent of national revegetation using the best available regional and national scale data and information; the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) Agricultural Census and the National Carbon Accounting System (NCAS). This approach provides a first approximation of changes in the extent of revegetation or rehabilitated land in Australia. Systematic and comprehensive monitoring and reporting of revegetation extent at site and landscape scales are critical for consistently evaluating successes of revegetation outcomes. Improved accuracy of reports would be achieved by using the national standard.

1. Development and application of core attributes
A first approximation national report of
changes in revegetation extent
Richard Thackway
Presentation to Restore, Regenerate, Revegetate: Restoring Ecological
Processes, Ecosystems and Landscapes in a Changing World
University of New England, Armidale
7 February 2017

2. Outline
• Context and definitions
• What information is frequently requested by decision makers?
• Development and application of national core attributes for national
reporting and monitoring revegetation outcomes
• National report completed in 2009

3. Revegetation
Regeneration
Restoration

4. Context
• Info about the investment in reveg and resulting changes in
extent of reveg is poor
• Current systems and capacity to enable national monitoring
and reporting are poor

5. Increasing emphasis on regenerative landscapes
Increasingscale
LANDSCAPE
MANAGEMENT
AMENITY, HABITAT &
ECOLOGICAL FUNCTION
Whole of
Paddock
Rehabilitation
(WOPR)
Mine site
offsets
Break of slope
plantings
Windbreaks &
shelter belts
Streamside
plantings
Biodiversity
plantings incl.
corridors
Total
Grazing
Pressure in
agri-
ecosystems
Public-
private
native tree
plantations
Public
native
forestry
Protected
areas
Mine site
rehabilitation
Defence
training
areas
Reveg drivers, incl. restoration and regen
Wetland
restoration

6. What key information is frequently
requested by national decision makers?
• What is the baseline extent and change in revegetation at
– Local, regional and national levels
• What spatial and temporal info is available for prioritizing the most
strategic investments
• What are the outcomes of investments – monitoring and evaluation

7. Project partners
Partners Part 1
2001-07
Part 2
2007-09
Australian, State and Territory Government
agencies
1
Land and Water Australia * 1
National Land and Water Resources Audit * 1
National NRM coordination committee for
vegetation – ESCAVI *
1
Greening Australia 1 1
CSIRO 1 1
Conservation Volunteers Australia 1
National Carbon Accounting System 1
Selected regional bodies and land managers 1
Australian Bureau of Stats 1
* Ceased to operate in 2008

8. Development of core attributes for
monitoring and reporting revegetation
Project – part 1 (2001-2007):
• Review existing attribute frameworks and systems for monitoring and
reporting
• Develop a set of standardized core attributes in partnership with key
research agencies and practitioners
• Seek national endorsement of the core attributes
• Develop and test tools: to collect, compile, translate and synthesize
existing data
• Promote the use and adoption the core attributes

9. National
reveg core
attributes
(Ver 3)
Site attributes
1. Data record
2. Date
3. Source
4. Location
5. Area
6. Existing land cover
Establishment attributes
7. Species being established
8. Revegetation Objective
9. Revegetation Method
10. Funding Source and $ Spent
11. Threats to Revegetation
12. Use of Patch
Monitoring attributes
13. Monitoring frequency
14. Revegetation - % revegetated, %
survival planted/ sown
15. Achievement of objective
16. Management of site
17. Comments
Other attributes – user defined
~18.-1000. incl. research
The list (v2) was endorsed in
2006 by Greening Australia,
NLWRA and CSIRO

10. Brochure

11. Field
manual

12. Journal papers
Zerger et al. (2009) Atyeo & Thackway (2009)

13. Online data entry tool

14. Online data entry tool

15. Online data entry tool

16. Application of core attributes for
national reporting
Project – part 2: (2007-09)
• Continue promoting the use and adoption the core attributes
• Populate a national database with existing spatial & temporal datasets
• Evaluate the suitability of compile existing datasets for use in national
revegetation reporting
• Evaluate the performance of the core attributes – revise as required
• Prepare first approximation national report of changes in revegetation
extent

17. ACT NS
W
NT Qld SA Tas Vic aaa
1 Yes
2 No
3 Yes
4 Yes
5 Yes
6 Yes
7 Yes
8 Yes
9 Yes
ACT NSW NT Qld SA Tas Vic AAA
1 Yes
2 No
3 Yes
4 Yes
5 Yes
6 Yes
7 Yes
8 Yes
9 Yes
10 Yes
12 No
Method: compile
data across all
scales for national
reporting
ACT NSW NT Qld SA Tas Vic WA
1 Yes
2 No
3 Yes
4 Yes
5 Yes
6 Yes
7 Yes
8 Yes
9 Yes
17 Yes
States & Territories
Corereveg
Attributes
Land manager
State-wide &
regional bodies
ABS survey and
remote sensed
data
National

18. So where did the data come from?
Extent Dataset name Data type Description
Intended scale
for use
Suitability
rating1
National
NCAS forest extent
1989-2006
raster woody vegetation change NRM partly
ABS agricultural census
01/06
table survey –
approx. 150 000
respondents
tree, shrub sown and
fencing area
available for SA,
SLA and
NRM regions
partly
ABS ARMS 07-08
table survey – approx
33, 000
respondents
regional native vegetation
protection & planting
NRM marginally
State/
Regional
Qld enQuire table native vegetation activities NRM marginally
SA DWLBC report 07 table (survey) revegetation activities NRM marginally
Local
ACT Landkeepers polygon
vegetation, land care
activities
local highly
NSW LMP (one NRM of
data provided)
polygon vegetation activities local highly
NSW PVP point intended vegetation offset local marginally
Vic CAMS polygon
vegetation, land care
activities
local highly
WA Regional
Investment
Footprints 03-08
(partially complete)
point NRM funded activities local marginally
CSIRO data from
VegTrack
polygon vegetation activities local highly
1 suitability for translating and compiling into a national dataset

19. National revegetation status report1:
What did we find?
• Revegetation, rehabilitation and restoration are interchangeable terms
amongst data suppliers
• Poor connection between reveg extent and condition & reveg investment
• Not all land managers and regional bodies are interested to collect and/or
submit or share reveg data
• State level and regional body datasets are incomplete and inconsistently
collected
• Spatially comprehensive and consistently national data include: NCAS2 &
ABS3 activity but these do not contain all core attributes
• NCAS and ABS datasets generally reflect a positive trend in revegetation
– NB: NCAS only detects woody vegetation change and not recent plantings
1 2009 Report prepared for the Department of Agriculture Fisheries and Forestry, ABARE-BRS, Canberra
2 NCAS (National Carbon Accounting System)
3 ABS Agricultural Commodities survey

20. Suitability of revegetation and restoration
activity datasets for national reporting1
Point and polygon datasets compiled using the revegetation core attributes

21. ABS – ha fenced
to exclude
grazing1
ABS – ha
planted or
sown1
ACT 66 59
NSW 138 393 43 952
NT 255 705 27
Qld 331 216 9 743
SA 33 977 8 197
Tas 6 545 1 013
Vic 31 331 20 232
WA 465 367 18 488
Total 1 262 600 101 711
1 total area of seed sown, seedlings planted and protected from grazing by fencing from ABS
Agricultural Commodities survey 2005-06 (7125.0)
Snapshots of area (ha) revegetated by
various activities from ABS

22. Border Rivers Gwyder -
Cummulative area of reveg since 1980 associated with annual
crops and highly modified pastures
0
10000
20000
30000
40000
50000
60000
70000
1986 1988 1990 1992 1994 1996 1998 2000 2002 2004 2006 2008
NCAS Epochs
Hectares
Series1
NCAS (National Carbon Accounting System)

23. Lessons
• Compiling a national dataset will require support and agreement of
multiple partners – full participation cannot be assumed:
– Researchers, land managers and practitioners
– Regional bodies and state agencies
– National agencies involved in reporting using remote sensing datasets
– National agencies involved in farm scale surveys
• Even with a common core attribute framework, there are numerous
analytical issues regarding fitness of the data for:
– Data integration and synthesis
– Consistent reporting at regional, state and national levels

24. Caution - remote sensing change is relative to a baseline
- it is only part of the answer – NEED REFERENCE STATE
Zero/constant baseline (e.g. environmental planting = reveg)
Response
variable/s
Time
Start
Time
Varying baseline (e.g. environmental watering)
Response
variable/s
Single intervention &
climatic variability
Baseline
Response to activity/ intervention
NCAS 1980

25. Caution: Differentiating LMP from natural
disturbance events and regeneration
Photos by Garry Dowling and Richard Thackway
2006 20132009
Low intensity grazing -
cell grazing sheep
Severe dust storm Low intensity grazing -
cell grazing sheep
LMP: land management practices

26. 1925
Occupation
Relaxation
Anthropogenic
change
Net benefit
time
1900 20251950
Reference
changeinvegetation
indicators&/orindices*
1850 1875 1975 2000
Need a model of ecosystem change
(causes & effects)
Baseline
*Indicators & /or indices of: ecosystem function, structure and composition

27. Conclusions
• National core attributes were successfully developed and applied
• Core attributes help researchers and practitioners talk the same
language and share datasets across multiple scales & jurisdictions
• The core attributes have not been systematically or
comprehensively adopted at local, regional, state & national levels
• Consistent and ongoing national reporting of revegetation
outcomes requires committed national leadership and investment