Improving Land Assessment and Monitoring
Tools for Assessing and Monitoring Resource Condition
The Landscape Futures Program has advanced capability in the use of remote sensing for assessing and monitoring resource condition. The aim of this research is to better discriminate landscape composition and patterns (e.g. vegetation, soil) with the enhanced capability of new-generation remote sensing as well as the wealth of information in long-term sequences of images.
Remote sensing provides repeated broad-scale measurements of land surfaces appropriate for landscape monitoring and management at regional and continental scales. As the technology improves, the capability for finer scale monitoring is increasing rapidly. The newest generation of remote sensing instruments include hyperspectral sensors, which record reflectance in tens to hundreds of wavebands, a significant advance on older multispectral sensors typically have <10 bands.
Hyperspectral imagery is used for many applications such as ecology, oceanography and limnology, soils and geology etc. The technology is particularly suited to the open spaces of the arid rangelands in Australia, as well as agricultural lands and mineral exploration.
Monitoring dynamic landscapes over time calls for high-temporal frequency remote sensing. For this we use long-term sequences of frequent images to track changes in land cover, plant growth, fires, and oceans.
Major project themes for the Landscape Futures Program are:
- Hyperspectral remote sensing - interpreting landscapes
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- Broadscale land condition assessment and monitoring
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