Abstract
Pastures from Space (PfS) provides rural enterprises across Australia with a unique ‘Australian first’ – it is a pasture management tool that utilizes satellite images from the MODIS sensor to determine pasture growth rates (PGR) and assist farmers adjust stocking levels.
PGR data have been selected for inclusion in the National Agricultural Monitoring System (NAMS) to streamline the Exceptional Circumstance (EC) drought relief application and assessment process.
PfS is a collaborative project between Landgate, Department of Agriculture and Food Western Australia, CSIRO Livestock Industries and commercial partner Fairport Technologies. It uses primarily the Normalised Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) and climate data in a model developed by CSIRO.
The NAMS web-based tool is using the following quantitative pasture growth rate data in whole or part:
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Monthly standard PGR data for the southern region of Australia at one kilometre resolution.
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Monthly PGR data for the southern region of Australia derived from the deviation of the median value of the last 12 year PGR historical archive.
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Monthly PGR time series graphs for all shires in the southern region of Australia. The graphs are based on the comparison of the current season to the previous three seasons.
The purpose and use of the information is for inclusion in the National Agricultural Monitoring System (NAMS), a web based data delivery tool being developed on behalf of the Primary Industries Ministerial Council, to assist proponents and jurisdictions in the development and assessment of Exceptional Circumstances (drought relief to rural producers) application and assessment processes. The data is web enabled ready for producers and land managers interpretation and compiled into reports for immediate use.
This paper outlines the acquisition and processed outputs of the PGR data to provide close to real time maps and graphs, using NAMS, for interpretation by rural producers and drought assessment authorities.
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References
Donald, G.E., Edirisinghe, A., Henry, D.A., Mata, G., Gherardi, S.G., Oldham, C.M., Gittins, S.P. and Smith, R.C.G (2004). “Pastures from Space – Validation of Predictions of Pasture Growth Rates.” Animal Production in Australia 25: 232.
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Smith RCG, Allen A, Stovold R, and Wiese R</aug> (2004) Pastures from Space® Delivering the Information to Farmers. Proceedings of the 25th Biennial Conference of the Australian Society of Animal Production. p. 317
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© 2009 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg
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Stovold, R., Adams, M., Maier, S., Donald, G., Gherardi, S., Broomhall, M. (2009). Using Pasture Growth Rate Data in a National Agricultural Drought Assessment Monitoring Tool. In: Jones, S., Reinke, K. (eds) Innovations in Remote Sensing and Photogrammetry. Lecture Notes in Geoinformation and Cartography. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-93962-7_25
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-93962-7_25
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