Dronescape: UAV Observations of TERN Ecosystem Surveillance Monitoring Plots, Data Collection
Dronescape Dataset Description
<br></br>
Dronescape is a research infrastructure initiative within TERN that integrates uncrewed aerial vehicle (UAV) remote sensing techniques into Australia's terrestrial ecosystem monitoring framework. The project addresses critical spatio-temporal gaps between field-based measurements and satellite observations by deploying UAV systems carrying RGB, 10-band multispectral, and LiDAR sensors across TERN's surveillance monitoring plot network. Through standardized protocols and automated processing workflows, Dronescape generates analysis-ready products including orthomosaics, reflectance maps, vegetation indices, and 3D point clouds.<br></br>
As of 2025, the project has surveyed over 120 plots across multiple bioregions, with ongoing expansion to additional monitoring sites. Each plot covers approximately 90,000 m², contributing to a continuously growing dataset that enables long-term monitoring of Australia's diverse vegetation communities.<br></br>
Project Scope
<br></br>
<ul><li>Coverage: More than 120 plots across multiple bioregions (ongoing expansion) </li>
<li>Plot Size: Approximately 90,000 m² per monitoring site </li>
<li>Temporal Scale: 2–10 year monitoring cycles </li>
<li>Data Types: RGB, 10-band multispectral, and LiDAR</li></ul>
Simple
Identification info
- Date (Creation)
- 2025-01-07
- Date (Publication)
- 2025-06-27
- Date (Revision)
- 2025-12-10
- Edition
- 1.0
Publisher
Author
School of Geography, Planning, and Spatial Sciences, University of Tasmania - Montes Herrera, Juan Carlos ()
Churchill Avenue, Hobart, Tasmania, 7005, Australia
Hobart
Tasmania
7005
Australia
Co-author
School of Geography, Planning, and Spatial Sciences, University of Tasmania - Lucieer, Arko (Associate Professor of Geography and Spatial Sciences)
Churchill Avenue, Hobart, Tasmania, 7005, Australia
Hobart
Tasmania
7005
Australia
Co-author
TERN Ecosystem Surveillance - Sparrow, Ben (Director - TERN Ausplots and Eco-informatics)
Waite Road, Waite, South Australia, 5064, Australia
Waite
South Australia
5064
Australia
Author
TERN Ecosystem Surveillance
Waite Road, Waite, South Australia, 5064, Australia
Waite
South Australia
5064
Australia
- Website
- https://www.tern.org.au/
- Purpose
- <p>The purpose of dronescape is to support TERN's multi-scale monitoring framework by providing high-quality, F.A.I.R. datasets that bridge the gap between field-based measurements and satellite imagery. The project enables detailed studies of vegetation community composition, structure, and spatio-temporal dynamics, facilitating research into species distribution, biodiversity, canopy architecture, phenology, and ecosystem responses to environmental changes. Additionally, dronescape serves as a platform for the remote sensing research community, providing resources for calibration/validation, protocol development, and processing algorithm innovation. By integrating UAV technology into standard ecosystem monitoring protocols, dronescape supports TERN's mission of providing comprehensive environmental research infrastructure at national and continental scales, while establishing standardized workflows for data collection, processing, and delivery through TERN's open-access infrastructure.</p>
- Credit
- We at TERN acknowledge the Traditional Owners and Custodians throughout Australia, New Zealand and all nations. We honour their profound connections to land, water, biodiversity and culture and pay our respects to their Elders past, present and emerging.
- Credit
- We thank the TERN Surveillance team, particularly Sally O'Neill, Carla Franson and Troy Bektas for logistics and field support. We also acknowledge the Terraluma lab members from the University of Tasmania, in particular Poornima Sivanandam, Darren Turner, Alice Robbins and Caitlyn Smart for their support in protocol development and data collection. We further acknowledge the support of the TERN Data Services team. This project was funded by TERN Landscapes & Surveillance.
- Status
- On going
Point of contact
School of Geography, Planning, and Spatial Sciences, University of Tasmania - Montes Herrera, Juan Carlos ()
Churchill Avenue, Hobart, Tasmania, 7005, Australia
Churchill Avenue
Hobart
Tasmania
7005
Australia
Point of contact
TERN Ecosystem Surveillance
Waite Road, Waite, South Australia, 5064, Australia
Waite Road
Waite
South Australia
5064
Australia
- Topic category
-
- Geoscientific information
- Biota
- Environment
- Imagery base maps earth cover
- Location
Extent
- Description
- Across TERN Surveillance Monitoring Plots.
N
S
E
W
))
Temporal extent
- Time period
- 2024-03-12
Vertical element
- Minimum value
- 0
- Maximum value
- 100
- Reference system identifier
- EPSG/EPSG:5711
- Reference system type
- Geodetic Geographic 3D
- Maintenance and update frequency
- Quarterly
- GCMD Science Keywords
- ANZSRC Fields of Research
- TERN Platform Vocabulary
- TERN Instrument Vocabulary
- TERN Parameter Vocabulary
- QUDT Units of Measure
- GCMD Horizontal Resolution Ranges
- GCMD Vertical Resolution Ranges
- GCMD Temporal Resolution Ranges
- Keywords (Discipline)
-
- drone
- uav
- uas
- lidar
- multispectral
- TERN Ecosystem Surveillance
Resource specific usage
- Specific usage
- The project enables detailed studies of vegetation community composition, structure, and spatio-temporal dynamics, facilitating research into species distribution, biodiversity, canopy architecture, phenology, and ecosystem responses to environmental changes. Additionally, dronescape serves as a platform for the remote sensing research community, providing resources for calibration/validation, protocol development, and processing algorithm innovation.
Resource constraints
- Use limitation
- The Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) license allows others to copy, distribute, display, and create derivative works provided that they credit the original source and any other nominated parties. Details are provided at https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
- File name
- 88x31.png
- File description
- CCBy Logo from creativecommons.org
- File type
- png
- Title
- Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Licence
- Alternate title
- CC-BY
- Edition
- 4.0
- Access constraints
- License
- Use constraints
- Other restrictions
- Other constraints
- TERN services are provided on an "as-is" and "as available" basis. Users use any TERN services at their discretion and risk. They will be solely responsible for any damage or loss whatsoever that results from such use including use of any data obtained through TERN and any analysis performed using the TERN infrastructure. <br />Web links to and from external, third party websites should not be construed as implying any relationships with and/or endorsement of the external site or its content by TERN. <br /><br />Please advise any work or publications that use this data via the online form at https://www.tern.org.au/research-publications/#reporting
- Other constraints
- Please cite this dataset as {Author} ({PublicationYear}). {Title}. {Version, as appropriate}. Terrestrial Ecosystem Research Network. Dataset. {Identifier}.
Resource constraints
- Classification
- Unclassified
- Environment description
- <ul><li>RGB & Multispectral: Structure from Motion (SfM) in Agisoft Metashape (v2.1.1)</li> <li>LiDAR: Processed using DJI Terra 4.0.10</li></ul>
Distribution Information
- Distribution format
-
- NetCDF
Distributor
Distributor
- OnLine resource
- TERN UAV Dronescape Data File Structure
Distribution Information
- Distribution format
-
Distributor
Distributor
Terrestrial Ecosystem Research Network
80 Meiers Road, Indooroopilly, Queensland, 4068, Australia
Indooroopilly
Queensland
4068
Australia
- OnLine resource
- TERN UAS Dronescape Data
- OnLine resource
-
uas_dronescape
TERN UAS Dronescape WMS getcapabilities request
- OnLine resource
- TERN UAS Dronescape STAC Catalog
- OnLine resource
- TERN UAS Dronescape Map Visualizer
- OnLine resource
- TERN Dronescape Data Collection
- OnLine resource
- ro-crate-metadata.json
Data quality info
- Hierarchy level
- Dataset
Resource lineage
- Statement
- Data Collection<ul style="list-style-type: disc;"> <br></br> The TERN Dronescape UAV observations follow the standard <a href="https://www.tern.org.au/data-collection-protocols/">TERN Ecosystem Surveilance Protocols</a>. <br></br> Technical Specifications Platform<ul style="list-style-type: disc;"> <li>UAV: DJI Matrice 350 RTK</li> <li>Sensors:</li> <li> DJI Zenmuse P1 (RGB)</li> <li>Micasense RedEdge-P Dual (10-band multispectral)</li> <li> DJI Zenmuse L2 (LiDAR) </li> <li>Georeferencing: DJI D-RTK2 base station and onboard GNSS RTK</li> Multispectral Bands<ul style="list-style-type: disc;"> <li>Band 1: Coastal, Center 444 nm, FWHM 28 nm</li> <li>Band 2: Blue, Center 475 nm, FWHM 32 nm </li> <li>Band 3: Green, Center 531 nm, FWHM 14 nm </li> <li>Band 4: Green, Center 560 nm, FWHM 27 nm </li> <li>Band 5: Red, Center 650 nm, FWHM 16 nm </li> <li>Band 6: Red, Center 668 nm, FWHM 14 nm </li> <li>Band 7: RedEdge, Center 705 nm, FWHM 10 nm</li> <li>Band 8: RedEdge, Center 717 nm, FWHM 12 nm </li> <li>Band 9: Near-Infrared (NIR), Center 740 nm, FWHM 18 nm</li> <li>Band 10: Near-Infrared (NIR), Center 842 nm, FWHM 57 nm</li> <li>FWHM: Full Width at Half Maximum</li></ul> LiDAR sensor<ul style="list-style-type: disc;"> <li>Penta-return @ 240 khz</li> <li>Non-repetitive</li> <li>Variable LiDAR overlap based on canopy height (52% to 75%) </li> <li>RGB frontal overlap (70%)</li></ul> Data Processing<ul style="list-style-type: disc;"> <li>RGB and Multispectral: Structure from Motion (SfM) using Agisoft Metashape v2.1.1 </li> <li>LiDAR: Processed using DJI Terra 4.0.10 </li> <li>Resolution: 1–5 cm/pixel for orthomosaics </li> <li>Co-registration: RGB and multispectral data co-registered during post-processing</li></ul> Data Processing Levels<ul style="list-style-type: disc;"> Level 0: Raw Sensor Data <li>RGB: Original JPEG imagery with navigation files (.nav, .mrk, .obs, .bin) </li> <li>Multispectral: Raw 10-band TIF imagery with positioning data </li> <li>LiDAR: Raw point cloud data (LDR) with calibration and navigation files (CLC, CLI, RTK, RTL, RTS, RTB, IMU)</li> Level 1: Analysis-Ready Products <li>RGB: Cloud-optimized GeoTIFF orthomosaic </li> <li>Multispectral: 10-band cloud-optimized GeoTIFF orthomosaic </li> <li>LiDAR: Processed point clouds (LAS, PLY) and digital terrain models (COG)</li></ul> <br></br> Details on the Data Directory Structure are provided in the Readme text file.
- Hierarchy level
- Dataset
- Title
- TERN Data Collection Protocols
- Website
-
https://www.tern.org.au/data-collection-protocols/
Method documentation
Reference System Information
- Reference system identifier
- EPSG/EPSG:7844
- Reference system type
- Geodetic Geographic 2D
Metadata
- Metadata identifier
-
urn:uuid/6f06238f-8fbf-4306-8131-3b74729e1fc4
- Title
- TERN GeoNetwork UUID
- Language
- English
- Character encoding
- UTF8
Point of contact
Type of resource
- Resource scope
- Dataset
- Metadata linkage
-
https://geonetwork.tern.org.au/geonetwork/srv/eng/catalog.search#/metadata/6f06238f-8fbf-4306-8131-3b74729e1fc4
Point-of-truth metadata URL
- Date info (Creation)
- 2025-04-15T00:00:00.000000+00:00
- Date info (Revision)
- 2025-12-10T10:14:48.502798+00:00
Metadata standard
- Title
- ISO 19115-1:2014/AMD 1:2018 Geographic information - Metadata - Fundamentals
- Edition
- 1
Metadata standard
- Title
- ISO/TS 19115-3:2016
- Edition
- 1.0
Metadata standard
- Title
- ISO/TS 19157-2:2016
- Edition
- 1.0
- Title
- Terrestrial Ecosystem Research Network (TERN) Metadata Profile of ISO 19115-3:2016 and ISO 19157-2:2016
- Date (published)
- 2021
- Edition
- 1.0
Identifier
Overviews
Spatial extent
N
S
E
W
Provided by
Associated resources
Not available