Data for: Fire-Moisture Interactions Shape Recovery Trajectories Across Temperate Vegetation Communities. Greater Blue Mountains World Heritage Area, 2015 - 2024 

This dataset provides soil moisture and post-fire stability index (PFSI) values across 760 sites in the Greater Blue Mountains World Heritage Area between 2015 - 2024 (inclusive). Sites were stratified based on the severity of the 2019/20 bushfires and by vegetation community. The seven vegetation communities assessed were: dry sclerophyll forest, wet sclerophyll forest, rainforest, heathland, freshwater wetland, forested wetland and grassy woodland.

This dataset comprises two JavaScripts, one R script, and one CSV. The first JavaScript calculates the PFSI (i.e. the relative change in vegetation biomass) from satellite imagery. The second generates randomised sampling sites and extracts corresponding soil moisture and PFSI values. The CSV file contains the combined output of both JavaScripts and can be used alongside the R script to reproduce our model. The csv file and accompanying data dictionary are provided as direct attachments to this submission. Scripts are hosted separately on GitHub (link provided).

This dataset is supplementary to the publication: Simpson et al. 2026, Fire-Moisture Interactions Shape Recovery Trajectories in Temperate Vegetation Communities, Global Change Biology
 

We at TERN acknowledge the Traditional Owners and Custodians throughout Australia, New Zealand and all nations. We honour their profound connections to land, water, biodiversity and culture and pay our respects to their Elders past, present and emerging. The creation of this dataset was supported by an Australian Government Research Training Program (RTP) Scholarship and a Holsworth Wildlife Research Endowment through the Ecological Society of Australia. Data was sourced from Terrestrial Ecosystem Research Network (TERN) infrastructure, which is enabled by the Australian Government’s National Collaborative Research Infrastructure Strategy (NCRIS).
 

This data was used to inform assessment of post-fire vegetation recovery under varying moisture conditions (e.g., drought, extreme rainfall). These methods can be extended to other areas across Australia.
 

Methods to calculate PFSI were based on: Gibson, R., L. White, S. Hislop, R. Nolan, and J. Dorrough. 2022. "The post-fire stability index: a new approach to monitoring post-fire recovery by satellite imagery", Remote Sensing of Environment 280: 113151. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rse.2022.113151

Soil moisture composites were generated from: Stenson, M., R. Searle, B. Malone, A. Sommer, L. Renzullo, and H. Di. 2021. "Australia wide daily volumetric soil moisture estimates. Version 1.0", Terrestrial Ecosystem Research Network, Dataset: https://dx.doi.org/10.25901/b020-nm39.

The vegetation and fire severity layers are available on the SEED data portal.

• State Government of NSW and Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water (DCCEEW). 2020. "NSW State Vegetation Type Map", accessed from The Sharing and Enabling Environmental Data Portal [https://datasets.seed.nsw.gov.au/dataset/95437fbd-2ef7-44df-8579-d7a64402d42d]
• State Government of NSW and Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water (DCCEEW) 2020. "Fire Extent and Severity Mapping (FESM)", accessed from the Sharing and Enabling Environmental Data Portal [https://datasets.seed.nsw.gov.au/dataset/33c2ee86-d2f7-4aaf-8c40-76b6d393a35c]