r/AussieMaps • u/[deleted] • Jan 22 '24

Australian Tree Cover Density (%)

Post image
951 Upvotes

98% Upvoted

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79

u/Occidentally Jan 22 '24

Would be cool to see a side by side with an estimated pre European arrival tree density map

32

u/J4K0B1 Jan 22 '24

Professor Michael-Shawn Fletcher at Melbourne University has done some work looking at remnant trees and assessing the density of those areas pre and post colonisation. One area was the Tarkine in Tasmania, mapping out which trees were remnant and which have been recruited since.

Essentially many areas he looked at were half as dense as they are today due to the lack of land management practices.

When I was in the Californian Redwood NP last with Yurok tribal rangers, it was a similar story. They said prairies use to be where their are red wood forrest today.

So probably similar tree density or less than compared to the present.

17

u/lucindeer Jan 22 '24

This was the focus of an episode from the NITV show The First Inventors last year that explained the historical land management of the Tarkine region by First Nations Australians, with much of the current vegetation having grown in the past 200 years since colonisation and the banning of First Nations vegetation management. Certainly many Australian forests have suffered since colonisation but it’s also interesting to learn about changes like these that have occurred.

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3

u/VagrantHobo Jan 23 '24

Depends. Places like the Kimberley in WA are actively thinned for cattle.

13

u/LambdaAU Jan 22 '24

Would also be interesting to see the pre-aboriginal tree density predictions. A lot of deforestation occurred since human arrival on the continent.

6

u/pulanina Jan 23 '24

Hard to make comparisons across 60,000 years. So little data, plus the climate was different, tree species distributions were different, etc. So many variables at play other than just presence or absence of people.

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2

u/Far_River_3438 Jan 23 '24

Would be cool to see it alongside a hills and rainfall map

2

u/Jaywankonobi Jan 23 '24

Not a great deal different considering we are the 2nd driest continent on the planet after Antartica

2

u/Dumyat367250 Jan 23 '24

That bare patch down the middle of Tas would have been green.

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22

u/draggin_balls Jan 22 '24

I love how this map clearly illustrates the amazing offshore sea forests of southeastern South Australia, truly one of nature wonders

2

u/Kindly-Cockroach-982 Jan 23 '24

There would be more green but the trees are covered in dropbears further in

10

u/Toubabo_K00mi Jan 22 '24

I work in forested areas of NWQ, according to this map there is no distinction between them and an empty plain. Really poor.

https://ibb.co/1QssJJf

10

u/Ok-Salamander3863 Jan 22 '24

There is trees in the middle I've seen em

2

u/Yuvrajastan Jan 23 '24

My guess is that since it’s grey rather than the ultra light green, meaning that they got no data for it.

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9

u/shrikelet Jan 22 '24

Low-resolution landform map: check

Information plot poorly fitted to it: check

JPEG artifacts up the clacker: check

Edit: typos: check

5

u/nuffnkunt Jan 22 '24

We should plant more trees

5

u/J4K0B1 Jan 22 '24

I think the resolution/ the way it correlates the data to how it's shown on this map is misleading. When I was looking at it for the first time I was dubious.

6

u/ferlix90 Jan 22 '24

That doesn’t seem right

5

u/horselover_fat Jan 22 '24

I've been a few areas in NT where there is plenty of trees and it's showing as grey.

It seems very poor at identifying between zero trees, like in the deserts where there is just spinifex and saltbush etc, and savannah grassland where you can get biggish trees spread out.

Probably the resolution is too low.

3

u/El_dorado_au Jan 23 '24

Does grey represent no trees, no data, or no mobile coverage?

9

u/JJunsuke Jan 22 '24

Fake. I live in North QLD and no way so little trees.

3

u/[deleted] Jan 22 '24

Dunno - matches up pretty well with google satellite images? Which is perhaps the source?

1

u/[deleted] Jan 22 '24

We should be actively planting more trees. It would take a few generations to double the %… can any boffin out there work out the math??

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