Calperum Mallee

The Calperum Mallee TERN SuperSite is in the mallee semi-arid ecosystem, fringing the River Murray floodplains on Calperum Station, near Renmark South Australia. The area comprises undulating mallee woodlands and riverine vegetation that fringes the River. All areas are in the process of recovering from extensive grazing.

The Calperum Mallee TERN SuperSite has established and reinforced research infrastructure that can measure and monitor the condition of a nationally iconic region. This SuperSite is part of the Australian Flux Network Project and will build on and strengthen existing ecosystem monitoring, grazing and floodplain restoration experiments and link with in-stream water quantity and quality measurements and is an OzFlux energy, carbon and water monitoring site.

The SuperSite is investigating fluxes of water vapour and carbon dioxide between the atmosphere, upper soil layers and groundwater as well as monitoring the changes in vegetation and dependent biota associated with the different ecosystems of the site.