This dataset lists land surface substrate characteristics observed in Rangeland sites across Australia by the TERN Surveillance Monitoring team, using standardised AusPlots methodologies. <br /> Land surface substrate observations are collected at each site as part of the AusPlots Point intercept method. At each site, observations on the substrate type (e.g. rock, coarse woody debris, litter) are recorded on transect laid out on the plots. These records form the basis for ground cover derivation, see the AusPlots Ground cover and Point intercept methods below.<br />

An estimate of persistent green cover per season across Australia from 1989 to the present season, minus 2 years. This is intended to estimate the portion of vegetation that does not completely senesce within a year, which primarily consists of woody vegetation (trees and shrubs), although there are exceptions where non-woody cover remains green all year round. It is derived by fitting a multi-iteration minimum weighted smoothing spline through the green fraction of the seasonal fractional cover (dp1) time series. A single band image is produced: persistent green vegetation cover (in percent). The no data value is 255.

This product has been superseded and will not be processed from early 2023. Please find the updated version 3 of this product at https://portal.tern.org.au/metadata/24070. Two fractional cover decile products, green cover and total cover, are currently produced from the historical timeseries of seasonal fractional cover images. These products compare, at the per-pixel level, the level of cover for the specific season of interest against the long term cover for that same season. For each pixel, all cover values for the relevant seasons within a baseline period (1988 to 2013) are classified into deciles. The cover value for the pixel in the season of interest is then classified according to the decile in which it falls.

This product has been superseded and will not be processed from early 2023. Please find the updated version 3 of this product here <a href="https://portal.tern.org.au/metadata/24072">Seasonal dynamic reference cover method - Landsat, JRSRP algorithm version 3.0, Queensland Coverage</a>. The seasonal dynamic reference cover method images are created using a modified version of the dynamic reference cover method developed by <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rse.2012.02.021">Bastin et al (2012)</a>. This approach calculates a minimum ground cover image over all years to identify locations of most persistent ground cover in years with the lowest rainfall, then uses a moving window approach to calculate the difference between the window's central pixel and its surrounding reference pixels. The output is a difference image between the cover amount of a pixel's reference pixels and the actual cover at that pixel for the season being analysed. Negative values indicate pixels which have less cover than the reference pixels. <br> The main differences between this method and the original method are that this method uses seasonal fractional ground cover rather than the preceding ground cover index (GCI) and this method excludes cleared areas and certain landforms (undulating slopes), which are considered unsuitable for use as reference pixels.

This collection contains the data used in the Multi-Criteria Analysis Shell for Spatial Decision Support (MCAS-S) software tool. From the Data menu, explore and download individual supplementary layers, or download the entire datapack. The Multi-Criteria Analysis Shell for Spatial Decision Support (MCAS-S) is a software tool developed by the Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics and Sciences that enables multi-criteria analysis (MCA) using spatial data. It is a powerful, easy-to-use and flexible decision-support tool that promotes: - framework for assessing options <br> - common metric for classifying, ranking and weighting of the data <br> - tools to compare, combine and explore spatial data <br> - live-update of alternative scenarios and trade-offs. <br>

Two fractional cover decile products, green cover and total cover, are currently produced from the historical timeseries of seasonal fractional cover images across Australia, available for each 3-month calendar season. These products compare, at the per-pixel level, the level of cover for the specific season of interest against the long term cover for that same season. For each pixel, all cover values for the relevant seasons within a baseline period (1988-2013) are classified into deciles. The cover value for the pixel in the season of interest is then classified according to the decile in which it falls.<br> This product is based upon the JRSRP Fractional Cover 3.0 algorithm.

The seasonal dynamic reference cover method product compares the current ground cover level of each pixel to a reference pixel based on the historical timeseries and is available for Queensland from 1987 to present. It is created using a modified version of the dynamic reference cover method developed by <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rse.2012.02.021">Bastin et al (2012) </a>. This approach calculates a minimum ground cover image over all years to identify locations of most persistent ground cover in years with the lowest rainfall, then uses a moving window approach to calculate the difference between the window's central pixel and its surrounding reference pixels. The output is a difference image between the cover amount of a pixel's reference pixels and the actual cover at that pixel for the season being analysed. Negative values indicate pixels which have less cover than the reference pixels.<br> The main differences between this method and the original method are that this method uses seasonal fractional ground cover rather than the preceding ground cover index (GCI) and this method excludes cleared areas and certain landforms (undulating slopes), which are considered unsuitable for use as reference pixels.<br> This product is based upon the JRSRP Fractional Cover 3.0 algorithm.

Three maps are available: 1) foliage projective cover, 2) forest extent, attributed with the foliage projective cover and 3) accuracy of the extent maps, which also acts as masks of forest and other wooded lands. Each pixel in map 1 estimates the fraction of the ground covered by green foliage. Each pixel in map 2 shows two pieces of information. The first is a classification of whether the vegetation is forest or not. The pixels classified as forest are attributed with the second piece of information: the foliage projective cover. Each pixel in map 3 is a class that provides information on the classification accuracies of the woody extent. These maps are derived from Landsat.

This product has been superseded and will not be processed from early 2023. Please find the updated version 3 of this product at https://portal.tern.org.au/metadata/23885. An estimate of persistent green cover per season. This is intended to estimate the portion of vegetation that does not completely senesce within a year, which primarily consists of woody vegetation (trees and shrubs), although there are exceptions where non-woody cover remains green all year round. It is derived by fitting a multi-iteration minimum weighted smoothing spline through the green fraction of the seasonal fractional cover (dim) time series.

The Sentinel-2 seasonal fractional ground cover product shows the proportion of bare ground, green and non-green ground cover and is derived directly from the Sentinel-2 seasonal fractional cover product, also produced by Queensland's Remote Sensing Centre. The seasonal fractional cover product is a spatially explicit raster product, which predicts vegetation cover at medium resolution (10&nbsp;m per-pixel) for each 3-month calendar season. However, the seasonal fractional cover product does not distinguish tree and mid-level woody foliage and branch cover from green and dry ground cover. As a result, in areas with even minimal tree cover (>15%), estimates of ground cover become uncertain. With the development of the fractional cover time-series, it has become possible to derive an estimate of ‘persistent green’ based on time-series analysis. The persistent green vegetation product provides an estimate of the vertically-projected green-vegetation fraction where vegetation is deemed to persist over time. These areas are nominally woody vegetation. This separation of the 'persistent green' from the fractional cover product, allows for the adjustment of the underlying spectral signature of the fractional cover image and the creation of a resulting 'true' ground cover estimate for each season. The estimates of cover are restricted to areas of <60% woody vegetation. Currently, the persistent green product has only been produced at 30&nbsp;m pixel resolution based on Landsat imagery, resulting in this Sentinel-2 seasonal ground cover product having a medium 30&nbsp;m pixel resolution also. This is an experimental product which has not been fully validated. This product is similar to the <a href="https://portal.tern.org.au/metadata/23884 ">Seasonal ground cover - Landsat, JRSRP algorithm Version 3.0, Australia Coverage</a> which is based on a different satellite sensor.