Great Barrier Reef Report Card 2015 – Burdekin: Ground Cover Presentation title
Catchment indicators Paddock Catchment Marine Sampling and remote sensing Measuring practices On-farm monitoring Water quality monitoring Coral monitoring Paddock modelling Catchment modelling Seagrass monitoring
Background
Bare Ground Index
Ground Cover Index Derived from Landsat using linear regression Reports percentage cover at pixel scale 25m x 25m Calibrated/validated against ~500 sites with RMSE of ~13% Weaknesses Only where foliage <15 % dry season only Modellers and others report it overestimates Estimating C-Factor Values for Great Barrier Reef Catchments using Satellite Derived Ground Cover Measurements
Fractional Cover Green Cover Non-Green Cover Bare Ground TOTAL COVER
Increased Field Sites
Opening of Landsat Archive
Fractional Cover Index Reports on percentage green, dry cover and bare ground at Landsat pixel scale Produced using spectral un-mixing algorithm and validated against 1500 sites Around the same level of accuracy Far greater temporal frequency Estimating C-Factor Values for Great Barrier Reef Catchments using Satellite Derived Ground Cover Measurements
Ground Cover
Fractional Ground Cover Green Cover Non-Green Cover Bare Ground GROUND COVER TOTAL COVER
Persistent Green Trees All Green Cover
Process Fractional Cover Persistent Green Cover Under Trees
Fractional Ground Cover Cover under trees Fractional Ground Cover
Things to know
Fractional Ground Cover Old Ground Cover Fractional Ground Cover ~38% of reef plan reporting area ~94% of reef plan reporting area
Patches
Seasonal Cover Composite image Medoid: multi- dimensional median High quality seasonal product Estimating C-Factor Values for Great Barrier Reef Catchments using Satellite Derived Ground Cover Measurements
Visual vs Point Intercept Estimates of Cover
Field Estimates Point intercept method for collection of ground cover data 3 transects in star formation covering a 1 ha area Cover type (bare, green, dry) recorded at 1 m intervals at contact point 300 points in total Estimating C-Factor Values for Great Barrier Reef Catchments using Satellite Derived Ground Cover Measurements
Visual vs Point Intercept Methods Ability of the human eye to look 'through' pasture to delineate areas of bare ground, subsequently overestimating its proportion. Murphy, S.R. & Lodge, G.M. (2002). Ground cover in temperate native perennial grass pastures. I. A comparison of four estimation methods. Rangeland Journal, 24(2), pp. 288-300. Estimating C-Factor Values for Great Barrier Reef Catchments using Satellite Derived Ground Cover Measurements
1:1 line 50% ‘Objective’ Cover = 24% Visual Cover 1:1 line 50% ‘Objective’ Cover = 24% Visual Cover Estimating C-Factor Values for Great Barrier Reef Catchments using Satellite Derived Ground Cover Measurements
Cover Estimation Exercise 19 7 51 31 62 43 76 60 97 92 Estimating C-Factor Values for Great Barrier Reef Catchments using Satellite Derived Ground Cover Measurements
Results
Target: 70 per cent late dry season ground cover by 2018. Good: Late dry season mean ground cover across grazing lands was 69 per cent. The ground cover distribution for Burdekin provides a visual representation of the results. The proportion of the region with less than 70 per cent cover is shaded blue and labelled (48 per cent). The distribution of the long-term mean ground cover levels is displayed as the dashed line, and the 2015 distribution of ground cover levels is the solid line. The median of the long-term mean and 2015 cover are presented (vertical lines), with the actual median value in 2015 (70 per cent) shown in red at the base of the line.
Burdekin: Rainfall
Burdekin
Burdekin: Area under 70% Cover
Deciles Compares season with all other seasons in record and ranks
Target: 70 per cent late dry season ground cover by 2018. Good: Late dry season mean ground cover across grazing lands was 69 per cent. The ground cover distribution for Burdekin provides a visual representation of the results. The proportion of the region with less than 70 per cent cover is shaded blue and labelled (48 per cent). The distribution of the long-term mean ground cover levels is displayed as the dashed line, and the 2015 distribution of ground cover levels is the solid line. The median of the long-term mean and 2015 cover are presented (vertical lines), with the actual median value in 2015 (70 per cent) shown in red at the base of the line.