Assessing the Impact of Climate Change on Vegetation Photosynthetic Activity in Tasmania's Protected Regions

Abstract

"Tasmania hosts many unique vegetative ecosystems, which are being placed under direct threat as a result of climate change. As a result, it is important to understand what impacts climate change has been having upon these regions, in order to be better placed to anticipate what the future may hold. This thesis analyses the extent to which photosynthetic activity of vegetation in Tasmania’s protected regions may have changed between 1981 and 2013. Using the data from this 32 year period, three different linear regression models were estimated. The first model assessed changes in the Normalized Differentiated Vegetation Index (NDVI) across the study area. The second model analysed changes in the key climate variables identified (rainfall, solar radiation, maximum and minimum temperatures) in order to assess how they have varied through time. A third model compared the correlation between each climate variable and NDVI through time in order to determine the possible influence each variable may have had on NDVI. The results indicated that vegetation photosynthetic activity has increased with time over much of the protected regions of Tasmania. Further, increases in maximum daily temperature appear to be one of the primary contributing factors to this change, with lesser influence coming from minimum daily temperature, solar radiation, and rainfall.