PASTORAL REMOTE SENSING TOOL TO HELP WA PASTORALISTS MANAGE SEASONAL VARIABILITY

July 28, 2023

The Pastoral Remote Sensing (PRS) tool is a free resource available to Western Australian pastoralists to help inform decisions and develop strategies on stock and land management through seasonal variability.

The PRS tool provides current and historical estimates of total green biomass, vegetation cover and rainfall for every pastoral lease in WA. Pastoralists’ can use this to monitor, compare and measure pasture condition and observe seasonal trends. Management decisions can be made based on this data such as matching stocking rates and feed budgets to total ground cover.

The tool was developed by Landgate in partnership with the Department of Primary Industries and Regional Development (DPIRD) based on satellite imagery sourced from NASA and the Copernicus Australasia Regional Data Hub.

 

What does it provide?

The PRS application provides monthly ground cover data. This is updated monthly and can be seen in the station’s land systems. It estimates:

  • bare earth percentage
  • dry vegetation percentage
  • green vegetation percentage
  • total vegetation cover.

High Resolution Imagery

High resolution images are updated fortnightly and offer 10 x 10 metre pixel data of:

  • Normalised difference vegetation index (NDVI) values which is a measure of greenness seen by the satellite and displayed as an index of 100-200.
  • Total green biomass (TGB) is shown in kilograms of vegetation per hectare. TGB shows the relationship between the NDVI value and actual cut and dried grass weighed and measured from Liveringa and De Grey stations and used as an average across the north.

Weekly Data

This function outlines the individual land systems on a pastoral lease and is updated weekly. The map indicates:

  • NDVI categories for the land systems
  • NDVI satellite imagery for the region
  • Estimated total green biomass (TGB).

 

The land systems are tabled with the TGB represented for the period chosen and the change since the previous week. The chart icon leads viewers to charts of the estimated weekly values from 2004 and shows:

  • total green biomass
  • NDVI
  • total dry matter

 

Image 1.   Pastoral Remote Sensing data gives pastoralists an indication of current and historical total green biomass to plan for seasonal variability

 

For more information about the PRS tool please contact Trevor Price – Trevor.Price@dpird.wa.gov.au; 0437 826 003

Categories