LAND ATMOSPHERE INTERACTION IN A SEMIARID REGION - THE BUNNY FENCE EXPERIMENT

Southwestern Australia, with a semiarid Mediterranean climate, has bee n extensively cleared of native vegetation for winter-growing agricult ural species. The resultant reduction in evapotranspiration has increa sed land salinisation. Through detailed meteorological and vegetation measurements over both agricultural and native vegetation, the bunny f ence experiment is addressing the impact on the climate of replacing n ative perennial vegetation with winter-growing annual species. Such me asurements will give a better understanding of the interaction between the land surface and the atmosphere and are important for improved pa rameterization of the boundary layer in climate models.