Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Resilience Of Phreatophytic Vegetation To Groundwater Drawdown: Is Recovery Possible Under A Drying Climate?, Bea Sommer, Raymond Froend

Research outputs 2011

Banksia (Proteaceae) woodlands are one of a number of groundwater-dependent ecosystems in southwestern Western Australia that are threatened by groundwater abstraction. In addition to this threat is an ongoing decline in regional water tables due to a drying climate. We used ecological resilience theory to analyse and interpret a long-term vegetation monitoring dataset from a site that has experienced an abstraction-induced acute groundwater drawdown in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Despite reduced plant abundance, all dominant over- and understorey species were still found on all transect plots in which they were recorded pre-drawdown. This suggests a notional resilience and …