Contents - Northern Australian Fire Information

Contents Acknowledgements............................................................................................................................. 1 About SavBAT...................................................................................................................................... 2 Data required from the user ............................................................................................................... 3 Reporting year, baseline year and start date of the late dry season .............................................. 3 Vegetation dataset.......................................................................................................................... 4 Fuel usage details ............................................................................................................................ 4 SavBAT outputs ................................................................................................................................... 5 Offsets report - Information included in the zipped .pdf file.......................................................... 5 Record keeping - Information included in the zipped .pdf file ....................................................... 6 SavBAT authenticity ............................................................................................................................ 7 Contact us ........................................................................................................................................... 7

Acknowledgements The Carbon Farming Initiative (CFI) Savanna Burning Abatement Tool (SavBAT) is funded under the Research and Development Stream of the Indigenous Carbon Farming Fund. This Fund is part of the Australian Government’s Clean Energy Future Plan and will provide support to Indigenous Australians to participate in the CFI. The Cooperative Research Centre for Spatial Information and Bushfires NT were successful recipients in the first round of funding to develop SavBAT. In conjunction with the grant recipients and the Australian Government the tool was designed and developed by Spatial Vision. The North Australian Fire Information service (NAFI) hosts SavBAT and allows SavBAT to access map data necessary to perform the tool functions.

© Commonwealth of Australia 2013

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About SavBAT SavBAT automates GIS and spreadsheet operations required to estimate greenhouse gas abatement for a project or potential project in accordance with the Carbon Farming (Reduction of Greenhouse Gas Emissions through Early Dry Season Savanna Burning—1.1) Methodology Determination 2013 (The Determination). SavBAT is applicable only to projects registered with the Determination made on 10 June 2013 (ComlawId F2013L01165). The Determination is available at http://www.comlaw.gov.au/Details/F2013L01165). It is not intended that the zipped .pdf reports produced by SavBAT contain all of the content that project proponents will need to provide as part of their offsets submission or keep as their records. The exact content of the outputs is detailed in SavBAT outputs from page 5, which also lists what additional data is required from a project proponent to meet reporting and record keeping requirements. To undertake the GIS operations SavBAT will access monthly fire maps developed and maintained on the North Australian Fire Information service (NAFI) website www.firenorth.org.au. The data accessed is compliant with the requirements of the Determination for monthly fire maps seasonal fire maps. SavBAT does: 

Verify that the project complies with the long-term average annual rainfall requirements of the Determination

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Calculate the years since last burnt (YSLB) values for each pixel in a project area

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Calculate the fire scar area (A) in the early dry season and the late dry season periods for each vegetation class

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Accept pre-prepared data for fuel use

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Populate all tables of the forms required for offsets reporting and record keeping

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Create many of the maps required

SavBAT does not: 

Provide mapping functionality that permits the user to create the vegetation maps required by the Determination

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Permit the use of fire seasonal maps not sourced from NAFI

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Allow for baselines that start before the year 2000

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Require (or allow) users to create accounts or log in

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Provide a permanent document management or record management system for the files created by users

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Link to the National Greenhouse and Energy Reporting (NGER) legislation


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Include in the outputs copies of the spatial datasets used in the calculation along with their associated metadata. These datasets are not included in the output provided by SavBAT but are available for free download, pre-prepared and zipped, from the NAFI website (www.firenorth.org.au > More Tools > SavBAT data)

Data required from the user To use SavBAT the user requires the following information for the project area: 1. Project ID and Project Name - optional 2. Reporting year, baseline year and start date of the late dry season for each year – required 3. Vegetation class data (a single vegetation dataset) - required 4. Fuel usage details - optional Specifics about items 2, 3 and 4 are described below. Reporting year, baseline year and start date of the late dry season  SavBAT allows proponents to set baselines that start from, or after, the year 2000, as this is the limit of the available data that SavBAT accesses from NAFI. The Determination allows project proponents to set baselines that start before the year 2000 under certain conditions. In these cases project proponents are not able to use SavBAT. 

Periods must be in whole calendar years corresponding to NAFI maps,

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The start date of the late dry season for each year of the reporting and baseline period is determined and published by the Government for each region. If the Government does not publish a date the start date of the late dry season defaults to 1 August.

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If the area of interest does have more than one late dry season start date the user must, externally from SavBAT, separate the project area into two or more sub-project regions for each cohort of start date. For compliance with the Determination the user must then enter import and process each vegetation dataset, along with the associated fuel use, separately.


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Vegetation dataset Users must, externally from SavBAT, prepare a raster format vegetation dataset in a supported format, projection and structure, as defined in the table below. Image Format Georeferencing information Image File Extension Projection Upload Format Grid Size (Resolution) Pixel values

8-bit palette GeoTIFF Embedded in GeoTIFF tags .TIF GDA_1994_Albers (EPSG:3577) Single TIF file (No ancillary files required or allowed) 250m x 250m Pixels must have the following values to depict the relevant vegetation class: 0: Pixel is within the project area but contains a non-supported vegetation class 1: EOF 2: EW 3: SW 4: SH 255: NODATA (ie pixel is outside the project area)

The user must direct SavBAT to where the desired dataset is stored on their personal device using the Browse button 

It is the user’s responsibility to ensure that the dataset contains only one start date of the late dry season as described earlier.

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SavBAT will not be able to complete calculations unless the area in the vegetation dataset complies with the long-term average annual rainfall requirements of the Determination

Fuel usage details Fuel use may have zero, one or more rows, with a row for each fuel type used on the project during the reporting period. 1. The fuel type name must match that specified in Schedule 1 of the National Greenhouse and Energy Reporting (NGER) Measurement Determination in force at the time the offsets report is submitted or was required to be submitted, whichever is earlier. This extends to the energy content factors and emission factors used to calculate the emissions from fuel use. All versions of the Determination can be accessed at http://www.comlaw.gov.au/. 2. If a fuel usage row is entered (i.e. if any field in a row has data entered), all three fields must be completed. 

It is recommended that you record the fuel item number then the name of the fuel combusted, e.g. 56 Kerosene for use as fuel in an aircraft.


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3. The user must, externally from SavBAT calculate the emissions from fuel use in accordance with the requirements of the Determination

SavBAT outputs As mentioned, the reports and files produced by SavBAT do not contain all of the content that project proponents will need to provide as part of their offsets submission or keep as their records. The contents of the Offsets Report and record keeping zipped .pdf files are listed against the requirements of the Determination, below. Offsets report - Information included in the zipped .pdf file Note that in the Determination, there is a minor difference between the content of the first and subsequent offsets reports. This difference is a requirement for the first offsets report only to include a map of the project area in relation to the rainfall line (the map described in paragraph 4.2 (b)). As the PDF is an attachment to the user created report, SavBAT creates only a single report type that covers the requirements of both reports types. The user does not then need to reference the map in a subsequent offsets report.

Information type

Offsets Report .pdf file (Subsection 4.4 and 4.5)

the CO2-e net abatement amount for the project

Yes

the validated vegetation map of the project area

No

the map described in paragraph 4.2 (b)

Yes

a description of the early dry season burning, including the location, timing and method of prescribed burns

No

the seasonal fire maps for the project area for the baseline period and the reporting period (i.e. a combined early and late dry season map for the project area has been approved by the Clean Energy Regulator)

Yes

for a fire map sourced from NAFI, evidence of the source

Yes

for fire maps not sourced from NAFI, the report of the registered greenhouse and energy auditor’s report relating to the validation of the early dry season and late dry season fire maps the results of the calculations and other information given in Form 2 of Schedule 2


No – SavBAT does not permit the use of fire seasonal fire maps not sourced from NAFI Yes

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Record keeping - Information included in the zipped .pdf file Information type

Record-keeping .pdf file (Subsection 4.2)

all primary maps and data used as inputs into both baseline and project emissions calculations, in electronic form;

No – User must download this from NAFI (www.firenorth.org.au > More Tools > SavBAT data)

a GIS map combining the vegetation map (to define the project area) and the savanna burning 1,000 mm map must be developed to provide evidence that the project falls within the above 1,000 mm rainfall area;

Yes

data sources used for compiling the vegetation map, including copies of all mapping products consulted and produced;

No

seasonal fire maps for each year in the baseline period and reporting periods;

Yes

all monthly fire maps and supporting data sets that underpin the monthly fire maps as required under section 3.4, including: maps used to calculate baseline emissions; and

Yes

maps used to calculate annual project emissions; YSLB maps for the project area, and the data used to develop the maps;

Yes

evidence of the validation of the vegetation map;

No

for a fire map sourced from NAFI, evidence of the source;

Yes

for a fire map not sourced from NAFI: 

This requirement has several sub points not shown here…

if the data collected by the registered greenhouse and energy auditor’s validation assessment has been used to increase the accuracy of a fire map, the original fire map and the adjusted fire map; the results of all calculations specified in Part 3 in the tables specified in Form 1 at Schedule 2; records of early dry season burning activities undertaken, including location, timing and method; and evidence of fuel use (including invoices and receipts and, in the case of helicopter use if fuel use receipts are not available, record of hours of flight).


No – SavBAT does not permit the use of fire seasonal fire maps not sourced from NAFI No – SavBAT does not permit the use of fire seasonal fire maps not sourced from NAFI Yes No No

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SavBAT authenticity To support auditing of the web site and its calculations, a single checksum value (e.g. 176DADE867B804D645FF979EA01F2F0D4) will be computed for the two key files used to compute the emissions outputs, the uploaded raster vegetation dataset and SavBAT code that calculates the emissions (and all interim values). This will be done as follows: a) Each time the process is run by a user, an MD5 checksum value will be computed for SavBAT code and a separate MD5 checksum will be computed for the user’s vegetation dataset as uploaded. b) These two hexadecimal values will be added to produce the final hexadecimal checksum value c) The checksum value will be included in the output reports This allows an audit of the output to be undertaken at any time, by recomputing the file checksums, adding them and comparing the result to the value included in the report.

Contact us If you need to contact the Australian Government for any reason regarding SavBAT, please contact the Carbon Farming Initiative at [email protected] or by phoning 1800 057 590. Note that for difficulties accessing SavBAT please contact the North Australian Fire Information service (www.firenorth.org.au).


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