Royalties for RegionS Carbon Project - showcase

Vegetation sampling at the Eva's property
Measuring carbon in saline areas
Chad and Nadine Eva’s property, Dookanooka, west of Three Springs provided a
perfect location for a collaborative project aimed at measuring levels of carbon
sequestration from native species growing in saline soils.
West Three Springs
The 57 hectare trial site was located
in a saline valley floor that had been
revegetated with a variety of native
species that had been planted in
2000 as a wildlife corridor. The
plants were all salt tolerant species
of trees and shrubs—including a
number eucalypts that had been
planted on the adjoining lower
slopes. On average there were 371
trees and 521 shrubs per hectare.
The trial site was developed by the
Northern Agricultural Catchments
Council (NACC) and DAFWA,
through funding under the Western
Australia’s State NRM Grants
and Royalties for Regions Carbon
Awareness Project.
Levels of salinity were high!
The levels of soil salinity at this site
ranged from 37-463 ECa, with a
site average of 245 ECa. On the
less saline land, it averaged
141 ECa, while on the
highly saline areas, it averaged 333
ECa. To put this into some context,
wheat starts to lose productivity at
100 ECa, and barley at 150 ECa.
The project
A total of 36 plots, each one
measuring 0.03ha, were sampled
(Figure 1). Within each plot, every
tree and shrub was measured
Figure 1 - Project plots
- either by stem diameter (trees
and mallees), or crown diameter
(shrubs). This determined the
amount of biomass of each plant
and provided the information to
estimate the amount of carbon.
At every second plot a number of
trees and shrubs were destructively
sampled to determine the wet and
dry biomass, which then allowed
allometrics, to be determined.
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Royalties for Regions Carbon Project - Showcase