Environmental Remote Sensing
Spectrum specialise in utilising remote sensing technologies for environmental monitoring and assessment for Perth and regional WA.
Remote sensing solutions may result in significant cost savings to monitoring programs, whilst at the same time providing highly consistent and informative data, that is both quantifiable and repeatable.
Lifeform & Target Species Detection
Remotely sensed data may be used to detect individual species of interest, such as dominant, keystone, rare, or weed species. Remotely sensed data enables us to cover much larger extents, including inaccessible areas, than is possible using conventional on-ground survey methods. Species detection with remotely sensed data can be used to survey habitats identified during species distribution modelling (SDM), or in ongoing monitoring of areas under active management (e.g. rehabilitation, weed identification and mapping).
Contact us to discuss how you can employ remote sensing technology to improve the efficiency and cost-effectiveness of your targeted species survey or monitoring program requirements.
Rehabilitation Monitoring
Remote sensing technology offers a cost-effective and repeatable monitoring method, capable of providing quantifiable, whole-of-site assessment from the plant to the landscape scale. This data can be used to effectively track the development of rehabilitated sites through time, while significantly reducing the need for costly and labour-intensive, on-ground monitoring.
Sophisticated image analysis software may be trained to recognise vegetation lifeforms (trees, shrubs, grasses, herbs, sedges), dominant genera/species (e.g. Triodia, Mulga, Eucalyptus), and identify and measure erosion features on recreated landforms.
Contact us to discuss how we can help you develop a rehabilitation monitoring program that effectively integrates remote sensing technology and on-ground monitoring techniques to better quantify and understand your rehabilitation performance.
Vegetation Condition
Remote sensing technology offers a cost-effective, repeatable method of vegetation condition assessment, capable of providing quantifiable, whole-of-site analysis from the plant to the landscape scale. Our spatial ecology team can apply sophisticated machine learning to remotely sensed data to quantify plant community structure and composition, and the health of various plant functional types (e.g. ground-water dependent tree species). This data is consistent, quantitative, and accurate, significantly reducing the need for costly, labour-intensive, on-ground monitoring, whilst producing more reliable, informative data.
Contact us to discuss how we can help you develop a vegetation condition monitoring program that effectively integrates remote sensing technology and on-ground monitoring techniques to significantly reduce cost whilst satisfying Government Regulator requirements.
Species Distribution Modelling
Undertaking targeted surveys to better understand the distribution of a particular species can be time consuming and costly, with no guarantee of success. Species distribution modelling can incorporate a wide range of spatially explicit environmental data and uses the habitat attributes of existing species records to statistically predict additional areas where the species of interest is likely to occur. The species distribution model can then be used to guide targeted surveys and lead to more efficient environmental impact assessment, avoidance and/or minimisation.
The type of data incorporated in a species distribution model will vary depending on the project and species of interest, and may include climate, geology, soils, elevation, landform (slope, aspect), vegetation community, and time since fire.
Contact us to use Species Distribution Modelling in your next targeted flora or fauna assessment.
