The physical template of Australia's floodplain landscapes

Abstract

The phrase the 'story of our land can be revealed through plants' (Wardle 2010) highlights the strong and reciprocal influence of climate, earth surface processes and human activities on vegetation distribution. Such influences strongly apply in riverine landscapes, from waterways and wetlands to the floodplains with which they are associated. Floodplains occupy the zone between terrestrial uplands and river channels and their inundation, along with associated fluxes of water, sediment and nutrients, provides strong selection on their vegetation so that floodplain plant communities are often distinctly different from surrounding upland areas (Naiman et al. 2005 ; Sabo et al .2005 ; Thoms and Parsons 2011 ). Inundation also drives the productivity of floodplain vegetation, so that floodplains are areas of elevated but often intermittent vegetation productivity (Tockner and Stanford 2002 ; Leigh et al. 2010 ; Reid et al. 2011 ; Parsons and Thoms 2013 ). Associated with this productivity, humans utilise floodplains for grazing and cropping, water supply, recreation, settlement and flood control (Tockner and Stanford 2002). It is estimated that of the US$33 trillion value provided by the world's ecosystem services per year, 10% is contributed by floodplains and wetlands (MEA 2003). Thus, the distribution and productivity of vegetation within floodplains is integral to sustaining human well-being.