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Digital Earth Australia (DEA) Wetlands Insight Tool (Beta) (QLD)

The Queensland Government has worked with the Australian Government (Geoscience Australia) to develop the DEA Wetlands Insight Tool (QLD). The Wetlands Insight data (beta) display on WetlandMaps summarises how the amount of open water, wet, green vegetation, dry vegetation and bare soil varies over time within each wetland. This information provides wetland managers and scientists with a historical baseline of wetland dynamics based on Landsat data starting from 1987.

Quick facts

The Joint Remote
Sensing Research Program developed the Fractional Cover algorithm that is used as one of the inputs into the Wetlands Insight Tool.

The data developed via the Wetlands Insight Tool presents a combined view of Water Observations from Space, Tasseled Cap Wetness and Fractional Cover measurements from the Landsat series of satellites is summarised as a stacked line plots based on the Queensland Wetland Mapping Polygons.

Please note

The DEA Wetlands Insight Tool is in beta testing and requires validation so care should be used when interpreting results as increases/decreases in cover types can be associated with different processes. For example an increase in green cover could indicate canopy recovery of desirable wetland species or an increase in the presence of invasive weeds.

Data quality may vary. The stack line plot will display periods of low data quality (defined as less than 4 observations in a 6 month period) as pale overlays. The period of time between when Landsat 5 ceased operations (November 2011) and Landsat 8 data became routinely available (May 2013) has been identified in the stacked line plot as a low data quality period. The 30-metre resolution of Landsat imposes an intrinsic limitation on the Wetlands Insight Tool.  Wetland areas that are small, or long and narrow in nature are likely to be inaccurate (due to inclusion of neighbouring non-wetland pixels) or difficult to interpret (stack line plots for areas with a small number of pixels have sharp steps in them).

How to use

To access the stacked line plot

  1. Open WetlandMaps
  2. Zoom to your area of interest within Queensland (performance will be affected if viewing the layer on a large scale)
  3. Tick the box next to “Queensland Wetland Mapping" > "Wetland Data Version 5.0 - areas"

    4.  

  4. Click on a lacustrine (indicated by yellow polygons) or palustrine (indicated by maroon) wetland to open the information pop-up box
    5.  
    Wetland<em>Maps</em> screen capture of Wetlands Area Data version 5.0

     

  5. Click on the “Display wetland hydrology” button in the “Wetland stacked line chart” field as seen below:
    6.  

    WetlandMaps pop-up with 'Display wetland hydrology dynamics' button

     

  6. This will open a new window displaying the stacked line plot chart, at the bottom of the screen, for that specific wetland:

    7. Stacked line plot graph example

     

Last updated: 27 January 2021

This page should be cited as:

Department of Environment and Science, Queensland (2021) Digital Earth Australia (DEA) Wetlands Insight Tool (Beta) (QLD), WetlandInfo website, accessed 13 April 2023. Available at: https://wetlandinfo.des.qld.gov.au/wetlands/facts-maps/wetland-background/insight.html

Queensland Government
WetlandInfo   —   Department of Environment and Science