Australian ground cover reference sites database 2014: User guide
Contents
1. Australian Government Department of Agriculture ABARES Australian ground cover reference sites database 2014 User guide for PostGIS Jasmine Rickards Jane Stewart Rebecca McPhee amp Lucy Randall Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics and Sciences September 2014 Summary Ground cover is the amount of living and dead vegetation in contact with the soil surface Spatially explicit monthly ground cover data are needed to improve modelling and monitoring of wind and water erosion soil carbon and soil acidification The Ground cover monitoring for Australia project has delivered a remotely sensed ground cover product describing green or photosynthetic vegetation non green or non photosynthetic vegetation and bare soil The project has also delivered a national network of sensor independent ground reference sites to validate this product The reference site data were collected by relevant state and territory agencies The project was funded by the Department of Agriculture and coordinated by its Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics and Sciences ABARES in partnership with the CSIRO and state and territory agencies The ground cover reference sites database contains the data collected from the national network of ground cover reference sites The data includes site descriptions and associated field measurements of fractional ground cover Data were collected across Australia from July 2010 to June 202. sum_check Total cover to identify errors View Table 12 Note PV photosynthetic vegetation NPV non photosynthetic vegetation BS bare soil Field collection protocols The field collection protocol code from the site_desc table in the PostGIS database Table 5 identifies the layout of the field transects and the attributes collected at the site The data collected through the Ground cover monitoring for Australia project uses two transect layouts developed by Queensland Department of Science Information Technology Innovation and the Arts Muir et al 2011 Fractional ground cover data collected prior to this project used the same transect layouts but slightly different attributes TERN AusPlots sites use a more intensive transect layout to collect fractional ground cover data as described at Appendix B The different transect layouts described by the protocols below are all suitable for improving MODIS and Landsat fractional cover algorithms The protocols have been assigned a code beginning with P1 for Protocol 1 Each protocol is described below P1 The star shaped transect method developed for the Queensland Statewide Land And Trees Survey SLATS has been used to measure vegetation in natural or pastoral environments Figure 2 Three hundred points are measured using the star shaped transect method as described in Muir et al 2011 Figure 2 P1 transect layout for natural or pastoral environments 0 transect 1 0 t
3. TERN Terrestrial Ecosystem Research Network Vic Victorian Department of Environment and Primary Industries Number of observations is 741 Source ABARES Data collection The number of observations collected in each month of the year and for each year between 1997 and 2014 are shown at Figure A3 and A4 Observations have been collected throughout the year though data collection has tended to occur more during the months of April to October The ABARES Ground cover monitoring for Australia project began in 2010 with a small number of training sites The majority of observations were collected in 2011 and 2012 Prior to 2010 field observations were collected by the Queensland Remote Sensing Centre now within the Department of Science Information Technology Innovation and the Arts and by the New South Wales Lower Murray Darling Catchment Management Authority 22 Figure A3 Data collection by month 350 300 m ABARES lt 2 250 CSIRO y 3 200 mTERN 3 mNSW S 150 3 mQld 5 TN Vic 2 50 Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec Month of data collection Note Colours represent data source ABARES funded by Department of Agriculture through the Ground cover monitoring for Australia project CSIRO Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation NSW Lower Murray Darling and Namoi Catchment Management Authorities Qld Queensland Remote Sensing Centre TERN Terrestrial Ecosystem Research Network AusCov
4. midstorey and woody vegetation gt 2m layer overstorey The ground layer percentage should equal 100 percent as a fraction is recorded at each transect intercept observation The woody vegetation lt 2m midstorey and woody vegetation gt 2m overstorey layers do not have values collected at every transect intercept When woody vegetation gt 2m is encountered in a live tree crown two values are recorded In crown indicates that the transect falls in an area of live tree canopy and the second value recorded describes the cover 15 fraction encountered Overstorey transect intercepts in sites with live tree canopy present may add up to 200 Sites suitable for collecting ground cover information are however chosen based on less than 20 per cent foliage projective cover and therefore the overstorey intercepts should be less than 100 Table 12 Attributes of sum_check view Field name Description Data type Values allowed unique_obs Site identifier Text 00000000_0000000_yyyymmdd longitude_latitude_date 32 characters ground Intercepts with a value for ground layer Real 100 00 mid Intercepts with a value for woody vegetation Real 0 100 00 lt 2m over Intercepts with a value for woody vegetation Real 0 200 00 gt 2m total Sum of all observations Real 100 00 400 00 ground mid over SQL functions Querying the database Example SQL functions to query the PostGIS field database table name field
5. 1 Number of observations in each state Observations State Total Published Unpublished New South Wales 91 58 33 Northern Territory 118 103 15 Queensland 30 28 2 South Australia 109 97 12 Tasmania 25 25 Victoria 119 45 74 Western Australia 151 151 Total 643 507 136 Note Data from unpublished sites may be acquired for specific research projects at the discretion of the relevant state agency Of the 119 observations collected by the Victorian Department of Environment and Primary Industries 48 were directly funded through the Ground cover monitoring for Australia project Map 1 Location of sites in the database as at August 2014 e published sites 0 _ non forested agricultural land uses amp E excluded areas C rangeland boundary Source ABARES 2014 Database design The ground cover reference sites database has been created using the open source software PostGIS http postgis refractions net and is available as a pg dump SQL file It can be loaded into PostGIS by running the pg dump file Running this file will create and populate five tables and three views schema shown in Figure 1 Tables contain static data Views calculate values from the tables and automatically update when new data is entered into the tables A description of each table and view are given in Table 2 The attributes contained in each table are provided in Tables 3 to 12 Each site visit is assigned a unique_obs code of longit
6. cover fractions Take the sum of each fraction in the EXPOSED_IGNORE column as a percentage of the total number of points excluding the ignores TOTAL COUNTIF EXPOSED_IGNORE lt gt Ignore SUMBARE COUNTIF EXPOSED_IGNORE Bare FRACTIONBARE SUMBARE TOTAL 100 Calculate the ground cover fraction Add a column GROUND_VEG This answers Y if GROWTHFORM at each point is a ground cover growth form or N if it is not Ground cover growth forms are Hummock grass Tussock grass Fern Forb Sedge or Vines less than 1m height FORMULA IF OR GROWTHFORM Hummock grass GROWTHFORM Tussock grass GROWTHFORM Fern GROWTHFORM Forb GROWTHFORM Sedge AND GROWTHFORM Vine HEIGHT lt 1 Y N Add column ROWORDER This column indicates the row with the tallest cover for each transect point This first row is given a value of 1 FORMULA IF TRANSECTPOINT precedingTRANSECTPOINT 1 precedingROWORDER 1 Join TRANSECTPOINT with GROUND_VEG This provides an identifier to show if there is ground cover vegetation at each point For example E2W2 1Y means there is ground cover vegetation at the row for transect E2W2 point 1 FORMULA TRANSECTPOINT amp GROUND_VEG 26 11 12 13 14 15 16 Add column PNT amp Y This is a reference column for each transect point This is transectpointY This is used to look for ground cover vegetation in all other transect points FORMULA TRANSECTPOINT amp Y Ad
7. e g NSW Text 3 characters crop Site cropped or not Text Yes No name G1 centre down L1 1st L2 2nd Text G1 L1 L2 L3 L4 L5 L6 L3 3rd L4 4th L5 5th L6 6th transect Which transect the image shows Integer 1 2 3 direction Site orientation in degrees Integer 0 360 cardinal_direction Direction text Text 10 characters Note At sites with vegetation in rows cropping only 5 photos were taken G1 L4 Site photos can be viewed on the TERN AEKOS data portal http www aekos org au home Site description The site description details are saved in the table site_desc In this user guide the site_desc attributes are presented in three tables corresponding to the three sections of the site description form used by the field operator to enter the data Table 5 contains the basic site description attributes Table 6 contains the vegetation description attributes and Table 7 contains the land surface attributes Some site_desc table attributes basic soil colours and soil moisture Table 7 have been calculated from the collected data Table 5 Attributes of site_desc table basic site description Field name publish unique_obs site_name state loc_desc site_desc date_collect time purpose protocol revisit zone datum obs_collect obs_log east_c north_c diff_gps bear_t1 2 3 slope aspect landuse alumv7 commod crop management growth spectra Description Consent for public release
8. litter covering the soil surface and can be monitored using remote sensing At a national workshop in November 2009 the MODIS derived vegetation fractional cover product of Guerschman et al 2009 was selected for national monitoring of ground cover Stewart et al 2011 The workshop also identified the need for a national network of ground cover reference sites to calibrate validate and improve the accuracy of ground cover estimates To meet this objective national standards were developed to collect field measurements of ground cover and to describe sites with all states and the Northern Territory receiving training in their use Muir et al 2011 The national network of ground cover reference sites commenced in July 2010 and was funded to June 2014 Information from 596 field sites 643 observations has been delivered as part of the Ground cover monitoring for Australia project This work was funded by the Department of Agriculture and coordinated by the Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics and Sciences ABARES in partnership with the CSIRO and state agencies Details of the project outputs to June 2013 are described in Stewart et al 2014 The data was collected by the following state agencies e New South Wales Office of Environment and Heritage e Northern Territory Department of Land Resource Management e Queensland Department of Science Information Technology Innovation and the Arts e South Australian Departmen
9. substrate not visible under vegetation FORMULA IF OR SUBSTRATE Litter SUBSTRATE CWD Brown IF OR SUBSTRATE Bare SUBSTRATE Crypto SUBSTRATE Rock SUBSTRATE Outcrop SUBSTRATE Gravel Bare SUBSTRATE 25 10 Insert column EXPOSED This column calculates the cover fraction for each row Where there is vegetation the exposed value is the colour of vegetation green or brown and where there is no vegetation the exposed value is the substrate fraction brown or bare FORMULA IF AND GROWTHFORM lt gt 0 DEAD FALSE INCANOPYSKY FALSE Green IF AND GROWTHFORM lt gt 0 DEAD TRUE INCANOPYSKY FALSE Brown FRACTIONSUBS Explanation When the vegetation growth form does not equal zero and the vegetation is not dead and it is not in the canopy with sky visible then the cover fraction is Green green vegetation Otherwise if the growth form does not equal zero and it is dead and it is not in the canopy with sky visible then the cover fraction is Brown non green vegetation Otherwise take the substrate fraction Ignore duplicate rows so only one cover value is provided for the tallest observation for each TRANSECTPOINT Insert a column EXPOSED_IGNORE If the row has the same identifier TRANSECTPOINT as the row above or if the cover was not collected NC it is labelled ignore FORMULA IF OR TRANSECTPOINT precedingTRANSECTPOINT EXPOSED NC Ignore EXPOSED Calculate the exposed
10. the 3 dominant woody vegetation gt 2m species Dominant 3 species by biomass for woody vegetation lt 2m Occurrence by biomass of the 3 dominant woody vegetation lt 2m species Dominant 3 species by biomass for the non woody ground layer Occurrence by biomass of the 3 dominant non woody species Prism factor used for tree basal area at each of 7 points on the transects Number of live trees inside area at each of 7 points on the transect Number of dead trees inside area at each of 7 points on the transect Converted prism x live Average live tree basal area total conv 7 m ha 11 Data type Real Text Real Text Text Real Text Real Text Real Text Real Real Integer Integer Real Real Values allowed Visual Photo standards Visual and photo standards Quantitative O No evidence 1 Minor burn lt 5 site or gt 3 years 2 Recent major burn gt 5 site or lt 3 years 0 5 6 25 26 50 51 75 76 100 55 characters 0 100 00 55 characters 0 100 00 55 characters 0 100 00 Table 7 Attributes of site_desc table land surface Field name erosion wind_erosion scald_erosion sheet_erosion rill_erosion gully_erosion deposits amount micro_relief vertical_m horizontal_m s_condl 2 3 s_stngth s_cracks disturb1 2 3 crust_d w_h crust_d w_v crust_d w_c dist_d w_h dist_d w_v dist_d w_c crypto crypto_mc c
11. 00000000_0000000_yyyymmdd 32 characters 20 characters 3 characters 255 characters 255 characters yyyymmdd hh mm Ground cover monitoring P1 P2 P3 P4 PS Yes No 49 56 6 characters 20 characters 20 characters Yes No 0 360 0 100 0 360 50 characters 100 663 20 characters Yes No Abandoned Baled Burnt Cultivated Grazed Incorporated Mulched Sprayed Standing none Other Establishment Immature growing Mature Senescence residue None Yes No Note See field protocols section for descriptions of protocols ALUM v7 is the Australian Land Use and Management Classification www daff gov au abares aclump Unpublished data see description UNPUBLISHED has been excluded from the dataset 10 Table 6 Attributes of site_desc table vegetation description Field name biomass biomass_method grass_m fire perm_veg overstorey vegist_o 2nd 3rd vegistpc_o 2nd 3rd vegist_m 2nd 3rd vegistpc_m 2nd 3rd vegist_g 2nd 3rd veglstpc_g prism1 2 3 4 5 6 7 live1 2 3 4 5 6 7 dead1 2 3 4 5 6 7 convi 2 3 4 5 6 7 total_live Description Estimate of standing non woody ground cover biomass kg ha Method used to estimate biomass density Average non woody vegetation height m Recent or severe fire Percentage of perennial grass cover Average woody vegetation height m Dominant 3 species by biomass for woody vegetation gt 2m Occurrence by biomass of
12. 14 at field sites under grazing and broadacre cropping land uses according to nationally agreed standards Muir et al 2011 The database is an update from the 2013 version and now contains published field observations current as at August 2014 This includes information from additional sites and corrects identified errors The database now contains 507 observations from 486 unique sites across Australia The data are being used to calibrate validate and improve vegetation fractional cover products derived from remote sensing in particular the satellite sensors MODIS and Landsat The data are being used to improve the national MODIS derived product of Guerschman et al 2009 2012 2014 The ground cover reference sites database has been developed using open source software the object relational database PostgreSQL with PostGIS to support geographic objects This enables the database to be displayed spatially by site location within geographical information systems The data is published through the Terrestrial Ecosystem Research Network TERN National Computational Infrastructure https rs nci org au u39 public html index shtml Australian Ecological Knowledge and Observation System AEKOS Data Portal http www aekos org au home and Soils to Satellites website http www soils2satellites org au Contents SUM a a E uutesecuagec saga E e A E e E A EEA 1 INtOdUCUON ia 3 Observations in the database wis scccavescavaciceteastncddeactod
13. 2 Add anew geometry location UPDATE sites_geom set geom geomfromtext Point 36 836742 143 96555 4326 where site_name vic002 17 Appendix A Other fractional cover reference site data The Australian ground cover reference sites database as described in this user guide contains only published data Field observations of fractional cover which are unpublished or collected outside of the Ground cover monitoring for Australia project are also available to calibrate and validate fractional cover products derived from the Landsat and MODIS satellites Appendix A describes the larger database of all 1714 observations from 1259 unique sites provided to ABARES as at August 2014 Map A1 shows the breakdown of these field sites by provider Table A1 gives the total number of sites collected for the Ground cover monitoring for Australia project and by other sources Table A2 provides the organisation and date of collection for site data delivered under the Ground cover monitoring for Australia project while Table A2 gives the same information for the additional site data available for validation Map A1 Ground cover sites in the database as at August 2014 non forested agricultural land uses E excluded areas E 3 o rangeland boundary j 8 Field site source Asi ABARES CSIRO NSW Qld TERN Vic Note Sources of sites data are ABARES funded by Department of Agriculture through the Ground cover monitoring for Aus
14. BY state e Summarise data by 2 columns states cropping SELECT state crop COUNT FROM site_desc GROUP BY state crop ORDER BY 1 2 Manipulating the database Example SQL functions to manipulate the PostGIS field database e Create a copy of an existing table CREATE TABLE fc_raw_backup AS SELECT FROM fc_raw INSERT into gcov_pub fc_raw SELECT from gcov fc_raw e Change a column name ALTER TABLE photos RENAME COLUMN direction TO dir e Inserta row of values into a table 1 landsat table INSERT INTO landsat VALUES 13426837_2887273_20110416_1 13426837_2887273_20110416 1 LT51010802011085 ASAOO tar gz 0 2 photos table INSERT INTO photos code unique_obs site_name state crop name transect direction VALUES 10000000_1000000_20110101_g1 10000000_1000000_20110101 sitename NSW n g 1 00 00 Delete a row from a table DELETE FROM photos WHERE code 10000000_1000000_ 20110101 g1 ALTER TABLE photos DROP ROW yel e Delete column a whole table can also be dropped ALTER TABLE table_name DROP COLUMN column_name e Delete from a table based on an attribute in another table DELETE from gcov_pub fc_raw WHERE unique_obs in select unique_obs from gcov site_desc where publish No e Update data in a column based on an existing attribute 1 Replace an existing value with a new one UPDATE exposed set unique_obs 12172062_ 3086876 _20101013 where unique_obs 12172062_3086876_20101213
15. Bare soil BS Real 0 100 00 crust dist rock crypto green Photosynthetic non woody vegetation PV Real 0 100 00 green brown Non photosynthetic non woody vegetation Real 0 100 00 NPV dry litter cover Non woody ground cover PV NPV Real 0 100 00 green brown unique_obs Site identifier Text 00000000_0000000_yyyymmdd longitude_latitude_date 32 characters 14 Exposed cover fractions The table exposed Table 11 presents the three cover fractions calculated from all vegetation strata ground mid and overstorey Exposed cover is the first cover seen when looking down on the transect point and estimates the view seen by the satellite Exposed cover differs from the fc3 calculated cover as fc3 presents the ground cover by calculating the cover fractions only for non woody vegetation bare soil and litter and excludes woody vegetation lt 2m and woody vegetation gt 2m Table 10 The calculation of exposed cover is currently completed in Microsoft Excel however this table could be improved by calculating exposed cover as a view so it automatically updates as new observations are added Table 11 Attributes of exposed table Field name Description Data type Values allowed unique_obs Site identifier Text 00000000_0000000_yyyymmdd longitude_latitude_date 32 characters ex_bare Exposed bare soil BS crust dist rock Real 0 100 00 crypto where no mid or overstorey ex_brown Exposed non g
16. Q m gt Q gt T gt m yo 1 0 1 0 1 0 Outcrop Alive dead Alive dead In Alive dead gravel growth form growth form Canopy growth form AusPlots Bare Y N rock height Y N Y N height sky height Note GCM4A Ground cover monitoring for Australia project Source ABARES derived from Muir et al 2011 and White et al 2012 To derive the exposed and ground cover fractions from the AusPlots rangelands data the following steps were applied Note that Green describes green or photosynthetic vegetation and Brown describes non green or non photosynthetic vegetation including litter dry leaf or branch 1 Extract data AusPlots tables studyLocationDetails studyLocationVisitDetails pointIntersectVegetationSpecies are linked using a sampling unit ID code e g 21503 From the pointintersectVegetationSpecies table extract the following fields for each site a TRANSECT b POINT c DEAD d GROWTHFORM e HEIGHT f HERBARIUMDETERMINATION g INCANOPYSKY h SUBSTRATE 2 Sort data by TRANSECT then POINT then HEIGHT decreasing 3 Insert column TRANSECTPOINT to create a single identifier FORMULA TRANSECT amp amp POINT 4 Insert column FRACTIONSUBS This column determines whether the substrate at each point is bare soil bare or non green vegetation brown Brown litter or coarse woody debris CWD Bare bare cryptogram rock gravel or outcrop NC Not collected
17. _summary view Field name Description Data type Values allowed crust Soil crust sum cr no points x 100 Real 0 100 00 dist Disturbed soil sum ds no points x 100 Real 0 100 00 rock Rock sum rk no points x 100 Real 0 100 00 green Green leaf non woody vegetation Real 0 100 00 sum gr no points x 100 dry Dry leaf non woody vegetation Real 0 100 00 sum dr no points x 100 litter Litter sum li no points x 100 Real 0 100 00 crypto Cryptogam sum cy no points x 100 Real 0 100 00 mid_g Green leaf woody vegetation lt 2m Real 0 100 00 sum mg no points x 100 mid_d Dry leaf woody vegetation lt 2m Real 0 100 00 sum md no points x 100 mid_b Branch lt 2m sum mb no points x 100 Real 0 100 00 in_crown In live tree crown Real 0 100 00 sum oic no points x 100 over_g Green leaf woody vegetation gt 2m Real 0 100 00 sum og no points x 100 over_d Dry leaf woody vegetation gt 2m Real 0 100 00 sum od no points x 100 over_b Branch gt 2m sum ob no points x 100 Real 0 100 00 unique_obs Site identifier Text 00000000_0000000_yyyymmdd longitude_latitude_date 32 characters Cover fractions The view fc3 Table 10 calculates the three ground cover fractions by adding the field calculated in the view fc_summary Table 9 Table 10 Attributes of fc3 view Field name Description Data type Values allowed bare
18. across the field observations 100 Bare ABARES e CSIRO e NSW Qld e TERN Vic Non green Green vegetation Note Colours represent data source ABARES funded by Department of Agriculture through the Ground cover monitoring for Australia project CSIRO Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation NSW New South Wales Lower Murray Darling and Namoi Catchment Management Authorities Qld Queensland Remote Sensing Centre TERN Terrestrial Ecosystem Research Network AusCover Supersites and AusPlots rangelands sites Vic Victorian Department of Environment and Primary Industries Number of observations is 1714 Source ABARES Exposed fractional cover could be calculated for 741 of the total 1714 observations where the raw point intercept data was provided to ABARES rather than just the summarised ground cover fractions Exposed cover is an estimate of the first cover viewed by the satellite overstorey when present midstorey if no overstorey present and ground cover when no mid or overstorey Exposed cover is shown in Figure A2 21 Figure A2 Distribution of green vegetation non green vegetation and bare soil exposed cover fractions across the field observations 100 Bare ABARES e TERN Non green amp gt 2 2 re 2 aS Green Green vegetation Note Colours represent data source ABARES funded by Department of Agriculture through the Ground cover monitoring for Australia project
19. ation greater than two metres is within a live tree crown in this case two measurements are recorded in crown field name oic as well as the canopy element intercepted Table 3 Attributes of fc_raw table Field name Description Datatype Values allowed Strata point Transect measurement Integer 1 300 All cr Soil crust Integer 0 1 Ground ds Disturbed soil Integer 0 1 Ground rk Rock Integer 0 1 Ground gr Green leaf non woody vegetation Integer 0 1 Ground dr Dry leaf non woody vegetation Integer 0 1 Ground li Litter Integer 0 1 Ground cy Cryptogam Integer 0 1 Ground mg Green leaf woody vegetation lt 2m Integer 0 1 Mid md Dry leaf woody vegetation lt 2m Integer 0 1 Mid mb Branch lt 2m Integer 0 1 Mid oic In crown for live woody vegetation gt 2m Integer 0 1 Over og Green leaf woody vegetation gt 2m Integer 0 1 Over od Dry leaf woody vegetation gt 2m Integer 0 1 Over ob Branch gt 2m Integer 0 1 Over unique_obs Site identifier Text 00000000_0000000_yyyymmdd All longitude_latitude_date 32 characters g total Only one observation for ground cover Integer 1 Ground cr ds rk gr dr li cy is permitted at each point m_total Zero or one observations of woody Integer 0 1 Mid vegetation lt 2m mg md mb are permitted at each point o_total Zero one or two observations of woody Integer 0 1 2 Over vegetation gt 2m oictog od ob are permitted at each point all_total Number of strata for each transect point Integer 1 2 3 4 All g_to
20. ck_lag_s soilclr1_cd soilclr2_dd soilclr3_cw soilclr4_dw soil_col_max wet_dry Description Rock colour for dominant 3 Munsell value Rock colour for dominant 3 Munsell chroma Abundance of rocks lag Average fragment size Basic colour for dry soil crust Basic colour for dry disturbed soil Basic colour for wet soil crust Basic colour for wet disturbed soil Most represented soil colour Whether a dry soil colour was given Data type Integer Integer Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Values allowed O None 1 Very few lt 2 of site 2 Few 2 10 of site 3 Common 10 20 of site 4 Many 20 50 of site 5 Abundant 50 90 of site 6 Very abundant gt 90 of site Fine gravelly 2 6 mm Medium gravelly 6 20 mm Coarse gravelly 20 60 mm Cobbly 60 200 mm Stony 200 600 mm Boulders 60 2000 mm Large boulders gt 2000 mm Yellow Red Brown Black Grey Yellow Red Brown Black Grey Yellow Red Brown Black Grey Yellow Red Brown Black Grey Yellow Red Brown Black Grey Null Dry Null Wet Note Soil and rock lag colour are recorded using the Munsell Soil Color Charts 1994 Basic soil colour is derived from the Munsell Soil Color Charts according to the colour classes of the Australian Soil Classification Isbell 2002 www clw csiro au aclep asc re on line soilcocl htm Most represented soil colour is determined from the frequency of transec
21. d column GCPERPOINT This column indicates if ground cover vegetation is present at each point by counting Yes values in the column PNT amp GC FORMULA COUNTIF PNT amp GC PNT amp GC PNT amp Y Add column GCROW GCROW determines whether a row contains ground cover vegetation and if it is the first or tallest ground cover vegetation recorded at that TRANSECTPOINT This assigns a value of O for non ground cover rows a value of 1 for the first ground cover row for each TRANSECTPOINT and 2 for subsequent rows FORMULA IF GROUND_VEG N 0 IF COUNTIF PNT amp GCtop PNT amp GCpreceding PNT amp GCcurrent gt 0 2 1 Explanation When the row does not contain a ground cover growth form it is given a value of 0 If the count of all rows above which match the current row is greater than 1 give a value of 2 Otherwise the row is the first row that contains a ground cover value and is given a value of 1 Add column TRANSECTPOINT1 This column copies TRANSECTPOINT for the first tallest ground cover at each TRANSECTPOINT and leaves duplicates as 0 FORMULA IF AND GCPERPOINT 0 ROWORDER 1 TRANSECTPOINT IF GCROW 1 TRANSECTPOINT 0 Explanation When there is no ground cover vegetation for this transect point and it is the first row for the transect point copy the transect point value If this is the first ground cover growth form for the transect point copy the transect point value Otherwise the row is a duplicate and is given a value of O Add col
22. e 5 50 of site 3 Severe gt 50 of site 0 None 1 Minor 2 Moderate 3 Severe 0 None 1 Minor occasional 2 Moderate common 3 Severe corrugated 0 None 1 Minor isolated 2 Moderate restricted to drainage lines 3 Severe branch away from primary drainage lines Sand lt 2mm Gravel 2 60mm Stones gt 60mm 0 None 1 Very few lt 2 2 Few 2 10 3 Common 10 20 4 Many 20 50 5 Abundant 50 90 6 Very abundant gt 90 0 Smooth lt 3 mm variation D Depressions M Mounds C Cropping rows furrows G Cracking M Self mulching L Loose S Soft F Firm H Hard setting C Surface crust X Surface flake Y Cryptogam surface T Trampled P Poached R Recently cultivated Z Saline O Other O Loose 1 Very weak 2 Weak 3 Firm 4 Very firm 5 Strong 6 Very strong 7 Rigid 1 Fine lt 5 mm 2 Medium 5 10 mm 3 Coarse 10 20 mm 4 Very coarse 20 50 mm 5 Extremely coarse gt 50 mm NH Horses NS Sheep NC Cows NG Goats NP Pigs NM Macropod NL Camel NR Rabbits H Human B Bird T Termite A Ant V Vegetation O Other None lt 2 2 10 10 20 20 50 50 90 gt 90 50 characters e g 5YR 3 2 50 characters Wet Dry 12 Table 7 cont Attributes of site_desc table land surface Field name rock1st 2nd 3rd_v rock1st 2nd 3rd_c rock_lag ro
23. en the TERN AusPlots field and AusCover remotely sensed cover fractions shown on the Soils to Satellite website are from differences between the date of field data collection and the date of the displayed imagery which is a single image for Australia B Sparrow per comm 2014 It is expected that imagery closer to the date of field site collection may be displayed in the future 28 Acronyms ABARES AEKOS ALUM CMAs CSIRO DAF DEPI DEWNR DPIPWE DSITIA GDA94 GPS LRM MGA94 MODIS OEH RSC SQL TERN UTM WGS84 Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics and Sciences Australian Ecological Knowledge and Observation System Australian Land Use and Management classification Catchment Management Authorities Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation Western Australian Department of Agriculture and Food Victorian Department of Environment and Primary Industries South Australian Department of Environment Water and Natural Resources Tasmanian Department of Primary Industries Parks Water and Environment Queensland Department of Science Information Technology Innovation and the Arts Geocentric Datum of Australia 1994 grid coordinate system for Australia Global Positioning System Northern Territory Department of Land Resource Management Map Grid of Australia standard revised 1994 projection Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer New South Wales Office of Environment and Herita
24. ept method adopted by TERN AusPlots rangelands includes a 100 metre by 100 metre grid of five north south transects and five east west transects resulting in 1010 points White et al 2012 Figure B1 Figure B1 TERN AusPlots grid transect layout for rangeland environments North West North North East eo 1 1 a I 1 e Om 1 I 1 rro r 4 10m 1 I 1 1 1 1 l 1 I 1 PO A 30m 1 I 1 1 1 1 w 1 1 Centre 1 1 1 1 1 l 1 I 1 l 1 I 1 pp po 70m 1 1 1 1 I 1 L l 4I l 4 90m l 1 I 1 e d l 100m South West South South East Point Sampling Location Point Intercept Transect Source White et al 2012 AusPlots rangelands transect measurements are different to the Ground cover monitoring for Australia protocol Muir et al 2011 due to 1 No separation of crust and disturbed soil both are combined into bare 2 No distinction between green and dry attached vegetation or branch vegetation is labelled as alive or dead 3 No strata distinction all vegetation in the intercept is recorded by height rather than a single intercept for each strata of ground mid and overstorey These differences are summarised in Table B1 24 Table B1 Cover fractions collected by Ground cover monitoring for Australia and AusPlots rangelands protocols Siete S gi a 2 a Sis e 2 2 MIS m lt O m lt E rei Gite S e lel 5 m m m gt
25. er Supersites and AusPlots rangelands sites Vic Victorian Department of Environment and Primary Industries Source ABARES Figure A4 Data collection by year 600 o 500 m ABARES o E 1 m CSIRO 3 E NSW 2 300 5 E Qld g 200 ETERN E 2 100 mVic 0 A OD DV ok AD ow O vv NY nD nd o o OS O S S S o S S N N YV Ay Y IES ESSE a a a HL A AAAA Year of data collection Note Colours represent data source ABARES funded by Department of Agriculture through the Ground cover monitoring for Australia project CSIRO Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation NSW Lower Murray Darling and Namoi Catchment Management Authorities Qld Queensland Remote Sensing Centre TERN Terrestrial Ecosystem Research Network AusCover Supersites and AusPlots rangelands sites Vic Victorian Department of Environment and Primary Industries Source ABARES 23 Appendix B Translation of TERN AusPlots fractional cover reference site data As at June 2014 TERN AusPlots rangelands had published data from 129 observations 128 unique sites on the Soils to Satellite http www soils2satellites org au and AEKOS websites http www portal aekos org au home More observational data will be published Appendix B describes the procedure used to translate the TERN AusPlots rangelands point intercept observations into vegetation cover fractions to use in calibration or validation of remotely sensed fractional cover The point interc
26. ge Remote Sensing Centre now part of Queensland DSITIA Structured Query Language Terrestrial Ecosystem Research Network Universal Transverse Mercator projection World Geodetic System standard revised 1984 projection 29 References ABARES 2011 Guidelines for land use mapping in Australia principles procedures and definitions a technical handbook supporting the Australian Collaborative Land Use and Management Program 4th edn Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics and Sciences Canberra available data daff gov au brs data warehouse pe_abares99001806 GuidelinesLandUseMappingLowRes2011 pdf PDF 3 81MB Department of the Environment 2012 Interim Biogeographic Regionalisation for Australia IBRA Version 7 Regions Department of the Environment Canberra available at environment gov au metadataexplorer full_metadata jsp docld 7B573FA186 1997 4F8B BCF8 58B5876A156B 7D Guerschman JP Hill MJ Renzullo LJ Barrett DJ Marks AS and Botha EJ 2009 Estimating fractional cover of photosynthetic vegetation non photosynthetic vegetation and bare soil in the Australian tropical savanna region upscaling the EO 1 Hyperion and MODIS sensors Remote Sensing of Environment vol 113 no 5 pp 928 45 available at http dx doi org 10 1016 j rse 2009 01 006 Guerschman JP Oyarzabal M Malthus TJ McVicar TM Byrne G Randall LA and Stewart JB 2012 Validation of the MODIS based vegetation fractiona
27. gy Innovation and the Arts for the Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics and Sciences Canberra available at data daff gov au brs data warehouse pe hbgcm9abll07701 HndbkGrndCovMontring2011 1 0 0 HR pdf PDF 81 20MB 30 Rickards J Stewart J McPhee R and Randall L 2013 Australian ground cover reference sites database User guide for PostGIS Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics and Sciences Canberra June available at remote sensing nci org au u39 public html modis fractionalcover sitedata abares doc Gcov database user guide 29July2013 pdf PDF 556kb Rickards JE Stewart JB Randall LA and Bordas VM 2012 Ground cover reference sites database User guide for PostGIS Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics and Sciences Canberra available at remote sensing nci org au u39 public html modis fractionalcover sitedata abares doc GcovPostGIS_report12 pdf PDF 501kb Stewart JB Rickards JE Bordas VM Randall LA and Thackway RM 2011 Ground cover monitoring for Australia Establishing a coordinated approach to ground cover mapping Workshop proceedings Canberra 23 24 November 2009 Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics and Sciences Canberra March available at data daff gov au brs data warehouse pe abares99001799 Groundcover_mapping workshop proc 11 pdf PDF 1 50MB Stewart JB Randall LA Rickards JE and Bordas VM 2012 Ground cover monito
28. ining 2011 March 5 0 5 DEPI 2012 Jan Feb 22 0 22 23 15 2012 Jan Feb April May 15 30 0 15 30 13 23 2013 Jan 19 0 19 20 14 15 A 2014 Jan Feb April May 16 41 0 16 41 16 40 WA Training 2010 Oct 9 6 3 3 DAF 2011 May July Oct 50 43 7 7 2012 June Sept Nov 83 73 10 2 2014 June 9 9 0 0 Total 596 643 437 441 159 202 121 156 Note OEH NSW Office of Environment and Heritage LRM NT Department of Land Resource Management DSITIA Queensland Department of Science Information Technology Innovation and the Arts DEWNR South Australian Department of Environment Water and Natural Resources DEPI Victorian Department of Environment and Primary Industries 71 extra observations were funded by DEPI DAF Western Australian Department of Agriculture and Food Source ABARES 19 Table A3 Number of sites and observations collected by other sources Data collected Number of sites observations Intensive Source State Year Month Total Rangelands land use Cropping zone RSC Qld 1997 Feb Sept Oct 36 53 35 51 1 2 n a 1998 Feb 2 50 2 48 0 2 n a 2002 July October 73 73 0 n a 2003 April 65 65 0 n a 2004 May April Oct Nov Dec 55 94 46 78 9 16 n a 2003 AM Dae NG 10 105 0 58 10 47 n a 2006 Feb April June Aug Oct 53 105 4 35 49 70 n a 2007 May 7 0 7 n a 2008 June July Oct Dec 39 66 31 52 8 14 n a 2009 April May July Oct 45 55 32 34 13 21 n a 2010 Feb Dec 11 61 0 11 61
29. l cover product CSIRO Land and Water Science Report Canberra May available at clw csiro au publications science 2012 SAF MODIS fractional cover pdf pdf 3 4MB Guerschman JP Scarth P McVicar TR Malthus TJ Stewart JB Rickards JE Trevithick R and Renzullo LJ in prep Assessing the effects of site heterogeneity and soil properties when unmixing photosynthetic vegetation non photosynthetic vegetation and bare soil fractions from Landsat and MODIS data submitted to Remote Sensing of Environment Isbell RF 2002 The Australian Soil Classification revised edition Australian Soil and Land Survey Handbooks series 4 CSIRO publishing Malthus TJ Randall LA Barry S McVicar TM Bordas VM Stewart JB and Guerschman JP 2013 Ground cover monitoring for Australia Sampling strategy and selection of ground cover control sites CSIRO Land and Water Science Report Canberra available at data daff gov au brs data warehouse 9ic 9icl 2013 gcmssd9ica_00120130308 grndCovMonAustSa mpStratAndSelGrndCovCont v1 0 0 pdf PDF 2 2MB Montreal Process Implementation Group for Australia 2008 Australia s State of the Forests Report 2008 Bureau of Rural Sciences Canberra Muir J Schmidt M Tindall D Trevithick R Scarth P and Stewart JB 2011 Field measurement of fractional ground cover A technical handbook supporting ground cover monitoring in Australia prepared by the Queensland Department of Science Information Technolo
30. n a 2011 May Dec 3 46 3 5 0 41 n a 2012 Jan Feb 4 9 0 4 9 n a CMAs NSW 2009 April May 32 32 0 n a 2011 March June 17 37 17 37 0 n a 2012 March June 39 18 21 n a CSIRO NSW 2010 Aug Oct 13 14 12 13 1 n a AusCover NSW 2010 Nov 1 0 1 NSW 2011 Jan 4 0 4 SA 2012 Jan Feb 6 6 0 Vic 2012 April 5 0 5 n a WA 2012 May 8 8 0 n a Qld 2013 Jan Feb 8 0 8 n a AusPlots NT 2011 Sept Dec 22 22 0 0 NT 2012 Jan Sept 57 58 57 58 0 0 SA 2011 June 5 0 5 0 SA 2012 June Nov 43 35 8 0 Total 422 631 277 355 145 276 0 Note RSC Queensland Remote Sensing Centre CMAs NSW Catchment Management Authorities CSIRO Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation Terrestrial Ecosystem Research Network AusCover Supersites and AusPlots rangelands sites Source ABARES 20 Fractional cover observations From the field observations of fractional ground cover the three fractions bare soil non green or non photosynthetic vegetation and green photosynthetic vegetation can be calculated The distribution of the fractional ground cover observations are shown in Figure A1 This tri plot shows the spread of observations across the possible cover fractions There are fewer observations with low lt 10 non green vegetation in conjunction with high gt 90 bare soil however this is likely to be a naturally rare combination Figure A1 Distribution of green vegetation non green vegetation and bare soil ground cover fractions
31. name or threshold values can be changed as desired Select all raw transect points for a particular site change table name or field as desired SELECT FROM fc_raw WHERE unique_obs 14885344_3205411_ 20101125 Select only some columns from a table SELECT photos code photos crop FROM photos Select sites with bare crust disturbed rock crypto greater than 40 per cent SELECT FROM fc3 WHERE cast bare as double precision gt 4 0 Select sites with bare excluding crypto crust disturbed rock greater than 40 per cent SELECT FROM fc_sum WHERE cast dist as double precision cast cr as double precision cast rock as double precision gt 40 Select site name and collection date for sites with active erosion SELECT erosion site_name date_collect time FROM site_desc WHERE erosion LIKE A Join two tables on unique_obs and select all bare brown and green fractions and site name and collection date and time for sites with active erosion SELECT fc3 site_desc erosion site_desc site_name site_desc date_collect site_desc time FROM fc3 site_desc WHERE erosion LIKE A AND fc3 unique_obs site_desc unique_obs Summarise data by a column number of sites per state SELECT state COUNT FROM site_desc GROUP BY state Select metrics and summarise by a column bare maximum minimum average by state 16 SELECT state MAX bare MIN bare AVG bare FROM site_desc fc3 WHERE site _desc unique_obs fc3 unique_obs GROUP
32. of data if No not published Site identifier longitude_latitude_date Name of the site e g Vic1001 State abbreviation e g NSW Landform or nearby landmarks e g towns or roads UNPUBLISHED Details of land use management or recent natural events Date site completed as year month day Time site started in 24 hour time Purpose of data collection Code describing the transect layout and attributes collected If site has been observed previously using the same protocol Zone as per MGA94 or UTM Coordinate system WGS94 or GDA94 Person who made the transect readings UNPUBLISHED Person who recorded the transect readings UNPUBLISHED Transect centre easting Transect centre northing Whether a differential GPS was used for a more accurate location Bearing of transect 1 2 and 3 in degrees Slope of site in per cent Horizontal direction in which the slope faces in degrees ALUM v7 tertiary class ALUM v7 tertiary code no decimals e g 331 Commodity name Site cropped or not The current management phase for the vegetation present including litter interpreted with growth stage Growth phase for the majority of plants observed Whether field spectra collected Data type Text Text Text Text Text Text Integer Time 5 Text Text Text Integer Text Text Text Real Real Text Integer Integer Integer Text Integer Text Text Text Text Text Values allowed Yes No
33. or Australia IBRA regions with few sites In developing the database users requested that it be created using open source software and have the ability to display site data within a geographical information system GIS PostGIS was chosen as it enables the object relational database PostgreSQL to serve the site data spatially by site location and to query the data using SQL functions The SQL functions section of this user guide provides some examples The user guide is an update to a previous version released in 2013 Rickards et al 2013 The appendices of this user guide describe other field observations made available to ABARES as at August 2014 for the validation of remotely sensed fractional cover This is an additional 1207 field observations from 773 unique sites These additional observations have not been publically released or have been collected using slightly different methods such as the TERN AusPlots rangelands method Observations in the database This field site database contains 507 observations from 486 unique sites across Australia The database does not contain all 643 observations collected under the Ground cover monitoring for Australia project because some project partners requested that field observations on private land not be published due to confidentiality The total number of observations collected by each state is shown in Table 1 The locations of the publishable sites in the database are shown in Map 1 Table
34. ransect 2 300 60 25 50 240 120 75 transect 3 A N 100 180 metres Source Muir et al 2011 P2 The cross transect method has been adapted from the SLATS star transect method as a simplified method for vegetation in rows such as crops Figure 3 Two hundred points are measured using the cross shaped transect method as described in Muir et al 2011 Figure 3 P2 transect layout for vegetation in rows such as agricultural crops 0 transect 1 3 25 50 75 transect2 A N 100 metres row direction Source Muir et al 2011 Raw transect data The fc_raw table Table 3 contains multiple measurements taken at each site of the presence or absence of ground cover woody vegetation less than two metres midstorey and woody vegetation greater than 2 metres overstorey For most sites a total of 300 observations of the vegetation at the site are taken with one measurement taken every metre along three 100 metre transects arranged in a star shape P1 Figure 2 Where vegetation is in rows as for cropping the pattern of cover is more uniform and the method has been simplified to a total of 200 observations recorded along two 100 metre transects oriented 45 degrees off row P2 Figure 3 as described in the section above Measurements are recorded as a 1 Only one feature type i e green leaf dry leaf etc is recorded for each observation category stratum except where the measurement for woody veget
35. reen or non photosynthetic Real 0 100 00 vegetation NPV ob od mb md dry or litter ex_green Exposed green or photosynthetic vegetation PV Real 0 100 00 og mg or green points Number of point intercept observations Integer 0 300 The exposed cover is calculated for each transect point A pivot table is then used to calculate the percentage exposed cover for the site For each transect point the exposed cover is the overstorey cover fraction unless there is no overstorey fraction then it is the midstorey fraction unless there is no midstorey then it is the ground cover fraction The overstorey and midstorey are calculated as green brown or absent using the following calculations mid IF mid green mg 1 green IF mid dry md 1 brown IF mid branch mb 1 brown 0 over IF over green og 1 green IF over dry od 1 brown IF over branch ob 1 brown 0 The ground cover is calculated as green brown or bare using the following calculation ground IF crust 1 bare IF disturbed 1 bare IF rock 1 bare IF green 1 green IF dry 1 brown IF litter 1 brown IF crypto 1 bare 0 The exposed cover for the point is calculated as exposed F over green green IF over brown brown IF mid green sreen IF mid brown brown ground Checking the data The view sum_check Table 12 calculates the cover fraction percentages for each site at the ground layer woody vegetation lt 2m layer
36. ring for Australia Progress report to June 2011 ABARES Technical report 12 1 Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics and Sciences Canberra May available at data daff gov au brs data warehouse gcmfap9abll080 GroundCoverMonitoringAust_v 1 0 0 pdf PDF 2 13MB Stewart JB Rickards JE and Randall LA 2013 Ground cover monitoring for Australia Progress report July 2011 to June 2012 ABARES Technical report 13 5 Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics and Sciences Canberra August available at data daff gov au data warehouse 9aal 9aalc GrndCovMon4Aust PrgRptJun2012 GrndCov PrgRpt J un2012V1 0 0 pdf pdf 4 67MB Stewart JB Rickards JE Randall LA McPhee RK Paplinska JZ 2014 Ground cover monitoring for Australia Final report July 2012 to June 2013 ABARES Technical report 14 1 Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics and Sciences Canberra May available at data daff gov au anrdl metadata files pb gcmafrd9ablc20140515 11a xml PDF 4 68MB White A Sparrow B Leitch E Foulkes J Flitton R Lowe AJ and Caddy Retalic S 2012 AusPlots Rangelands Survey Protocols Manual Version 1 2 9 2012 University of Adelaide Press South Australia www tern org au rs 7 sites 998 user_uploads File AusPlots 20Rangelands 20manual 20versions AusPlots 20Rangelands 20Survey 20Protocols 20Manual 20v1 2 9 20HiRes pdf PDF 25 58MB 31
37. rypto_bc crypto_w_d rock1st 2nd 3rd_h Description State of erosion Wind erosion severity Scald erosion by water and or wind severity Sheet erosion by water severity Rill erosion by water severity Gully erosion by water severity Deposited materials Abundance of deposited material Surface smoothness mounds depressions furrows Interval between base and crest m Horizontal distance between crests m Surface condition when dry Surface soil strength Surface cracks Biotic agents causing soil surface relief disturbance up to 3 agents Dry and wet soil crust colour Munsell hue Dry and wet soil crust colour Munsell value Dry and wet soil crust colour Munsell chroma Dry and wet disturbed soil colour Munsell hue Dry and wet disturbed soil colour Munsell value Dry and wet disturbed soil colour Munsell chroma Cryptogam cover Cryptogam colour Munsell hue value chroma Cryptogam colour basic colour Cryptogam wet or dry First three dominant rock cover readings Munsell hue Data type Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Integer Integer Text Text Text Text Text Integer Integer Text Integer Integer Text Text Text Text Text Values allowed N None A Active S Stabilised P Partly stabilised 0 None 1 Minor 2 Moderate 3 Severe 4 Very severe 0 None 1 Minor lt 5 of site 2 Moderat
38. t observations for soil crust and disturbed soil from fc_raw Table 3 The soil surface is assumed to have been wet when visited if there is no dry soil colour recorded Site locations The x y coordinates of the field locations are saved in the sites_geom table Table 8 This table contains geometries to enable the field locations to be shown and queried spatially in geographic information system programs such as QGIS Table 8 Attributes of sites_geom table Field name site_name state latitude longitude unique_obs geom Description Name of the site e g Vic1001 State abbreviations e g NSW Latitude Longitude Site identifier longitude_latitude_date Point geometry latitude longitude in WGS84 Data type Values allowed Text 20 characters Text 5 characters Real Real Text 00000000_0000000_yyyymmdd 32 characters Point location 13 Cover summaries Views are automatically updated as data is added or changed in the other tables The views fc_summary Table 9 and fc3 Table 10 calculate fractions for the ground layer from the raw transect values in fc_raw Table 3 Other views could be produced to calculate total vegetation cover including the woody vegetation components such as view sum_check Table 12 The view fc_summary Table 9 calculates the percent cover for each cover type directly from the 200 or 300 transect observations points recorded in the table fc_raw Table 9 Attributes of fc
39. t of Environment Water and Natural Resources e Tasmanian Department of Primary Industries Parks Water and Environment e Victorian Department of Environment and Primary Industries and the e Western Australian Department of Agriculture and Food The updated reference sites database now contains 507 observations from 486 unique sites This adds 43 observations and 26 sites to the database published in 2013 The data were collected in the field and entered into two Microsoft Excel spreadsheets the site description form and the transect form and provided to ABARES with digital site photographs These photos were included in the ground cover reference sites database The ground cover reference sites database conforms to the methods described in Muir et al 2011 Choice of site locations was informed by a sampling strategy Malthus et al 2013 and sampling protocols Stewart et al 2012 Stewart et al 2013 Sites were preferentially located in areas dominated by non woody vegetation with tree canopy cover less than 20 per cent under grazing or broadacre cropping land uses Areas with tree cover greater than 20 per cent based on Montreal Process Implementation Group for Australia 2008 and non agricultural land uses such as urban conservation or indigenous land uses based on ABARES 2011 were avoided where possible The majority of sites are located in the rangelands Data collection in 2014 targeted Interim Biogeographic Regionalisation f
40. tal m_total o_total Note Primary key unique_obs point Non woody vegetative cover such as grasses has no height restriction dry leaf is senescent or dead vegetation attached to a plant or the ground litter is unattached dead vegetation cryptogam is a biological crust on the soil surface in crown is the vertically projected perimeter of all foliage and branches of the plant and is recorded for live trees only Latitude and longitude are given in decimal degrees Photographs Digital photographs are taken at each site All images are taken from the transect centre with the first pointing directly down G and the others along each transect line L starting at north and working around in a clockwise direction Five photos are taken when the site has vegetation in rows cropping and seven photos at each site in natural or pastoral environments The number of photos taken reflects the field collection protocol adopted P2 or two transects for vegetation in rows Figure 3 and P1 or three transects for natural or pastoral environments Figure 2 The photos table Table 4 stores the details of the digital photographs Table 4 Attributes of photos table Field name Description Data type Values allowed code Primary key unique_obs name Text 35 characters unique_obs Site identifier Text 00000000_0000000_yyyymmdd longitude_latitude_date 32 characters site_name Name of the site e g Vic1001 Text 20 characters state State abbreviation
41. tralia project CSIRO Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation NSW Lower Murray Darling and Namoi Catchment Management Authorities Qld Queensland Remote Sensing Centre TERN Terrestrial Ecosystem Research Network AusCover Supersites and AusPlots rangelands sites Vic Victorian Department of Environment and Primary Industries Source ABARES 18 Table A1 Total number of sites and observations Ground cover monitoring for Australia Other sources Source Total 596 643 422 631 Total 1259 1714 Number of sites observations Intensive Rangelands land use zone 437 441 159 202 277 355 145 276 935 1169 324 545 Cropping 156 0 156 Table A2 Number of sites and observations collected though the Ground cover monitoring for Australia project Data collected Number of sites observations Intensive State Source Year Month Total Rangelands land use Cropping zone NSW Training 2010 Nov 5 0 5 1 OEH 2011 April June July 44 41 3 7 2012 April Aug Oct 42 39 3 6 NT Training 2011 May 5 5 0 2 LRM 2011 Aug Oct 36 36 0 0 2012 Feb Aug 68 68 0 0 2014 May 9 9 0 0 Qld DSITIA 2011 June Sept Nov 16 17 4 12 13 3 2012 April June Oct 9 13 9 13 0 0 SA Training 2010 July 6 4 2 2 DEWNR 2011 April May 39 34 5 7 2012 March April Nov Dec 55 48 7 8 2014 May 9 9 0 0 Tas Training 2011 March April 0 4 1 DPIPWE 2011 Dec 2 0 2 0 2012 June Dec 18 0 18 12 2013 Feb 0 1 0 Vic Tra
42. ude_latitude_date to join or relate all tables Each table also contains a primary key which is unique for each data entry at a site For attributes with a single data entry such as in the site description table Table 5 the primary key is the unique_obs code For attributes with multiple data entries such as in the raw transect data table Table 3 with 200 300 points per site the primary key is either a new field or a combination of existing fields Figure 1 Schema of PostGIS database HE Tables 5 Lt EN exposed ES fc_raw E photos E site desc H E sites geom FLA Views 3 dd 103 ES fc_summary En sum check Table 2 Tables and views in the ground cover reference site database Name Content for each site Type Attributes exposed Exposed ground cover fractions bare non green NPV and green PV Table Table 11 of sites fc_raw Raw data for each point along the transect layout 200 or 300 Table Table 3 observations photos An index of 7 or 5 photographs taken along the transect layout Table Table 4 site_desc Other information describing the site such as land use vegetation Table Table 5 7 species soil surface condition soil colour etc sites_geom Location in latitude and longitude Table geom Table 8 fc3 Totals for the ground layer fractions green PV non green NPV and View Table 10 BS bare fractions and ground cover PV NPV fc_summary Totals for each cover category View Table 9
43. umn GC_COLOUR which provides the ground cover fraction If there are no rows for a transect point which have ground cover vegetation it takes the substrate If the ground cover vegetation is not dead i e dead FALSE it is assigned to Green otherwise to Brown FORMULA IF GCPERROW 0 FRACTIONSUB IF DEAD FALSE Green Brown Calculate the ground cover fractions Filter to exclude all data where TRANSECTPOINT1 0 Take the sum of each remaining fraction in the GC_COLOUR column as a percentage of the total number of points TOTAL COUNTIF TRANSECTPOINT1 lt gt 0 SUMBARE COUNTIF GC_COLOUR Bare FRACTIONBARE SUMBARE TOTAL 100 27 These rules were developed in discussion with the producers of the remotely sensed fractional cover products and TERN representatives All TERN AusPlots rangelands measurements are likely to underestimate the non green vegetation fraction as there is no distinction between dry leaf green leaf and branch The AusPlots interpretation of growth form into ground cover may also vary to the protocol of Muir et al 2011 Cover fractions are currently displayed differently on the Soils to Satellite website http www soils2satellites org au due to the ABARES calculation including cryptogam in the bare soil fraction as described in Muir et al 2011 Cryptogam can be photosynthetic or non photosynthetic vegetation and has been included in green fraction of the TERN calculations The differences betwe
44. vast cd enanvaee ca tardeeeddarisd ci 4 Databasede id ii Ree nae IS ER 5 Field collection Protocols ccccccccccccsssssssscececeeeceeseseesececeecessseseaeseeeesescesseseeaeseeeeeessseseasaeeeeees 6 RaWwitransectidata iii diia coves EaI E EEAS PANEER added tia asta 8 A veh sac deene dG ddess ceavletancsdde a a a lukas cube ne a Sa oaa ea arei ee 8 AA A cos A A E ee es eee cdl shiv sa O ada rece as De ea 9 SIt IOCALIONS tii da ii tit Baa it A a it dada Aa eens 13 COVEFSUNIN MIOS A A A A E A A da Tits 14 Cover TRACT ONS vita a dt aaa 14 EXPOSCA COVER MiS ita 15 Checking the o fT e PEE EEE Ai Glebe E lien een een EA een eee 15 SOU TURCH ONS bis 16 Quenving the databases miii A ns 16 Manipulating the database hi a aaa 17 Appendix A Other fractional cover reference site data ccconoccccnnnoncccnnonononnncnnnannnnnnnnnannnonnns 18 Fractional cover OBS rat a 21 Data CONCA A A EA 22 Appendix B Translation of TERN AusPlots fractional cover reference site data 24 ACTO MOS ii i 29 REfereNCES IA id 30 Introduction A national remotely sensed fractional cover product is necessary to monitor ground cover levels Ground cover is a key input to wind and water erosion modelling to predict rates of soil loss and to monitor the impact of different management practices on ground cover levels and soil erosion risk It also has applications for managing agricultural assets Ground cover is defined as the non woody vegetation and
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