Australia is a vast country with a wide range of diverse ecosystems. To gain an understanding of their values in terms of, for example, carbon stocks and biodiversity, and how these change over time, we need to make use of our extensive archive of satellite remote sensing data. By exploiting these data, we can quantify the state of ecosystems, their dynamics and the impacts of different land use and management policies and practices.
TERN’s AusCover facility is taking a leading role in working with state, national and international stakeholders to improve access to satellite sensor data and facilitate the generation of products relevant to the Australian environment.
In conjunction with TERN AusCover, the Joint Remote Sensing Research Program (JRSRP), which is run out of the University of Queensland, has been working with Australian and international scientists to generate detailed national maps of the structure (height and cover) and biomass of woody vegetation and to construct a National Biomass Library. These datasets and repositories provide essential baselines against which future changes in the biomass and structure of vegetation can be quantified.The team, which includes Dr. John Armston and Dr. Peter Scarth (QLD Department of Science, Information Technology and Innovation and the University of Queensland), Professor Richard Lucas (University of New South Wales), Dr. Peter Bunting (Aberystwyth University, UK) and Dr. Dan Clewley (Plymouth Marine Laboratory, UK) have been collaborating with the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) on their Kyoto and Carbon (K&C) Initiative for over a decade.
