Satellite imagery to track the action

Satellite imagery is putting the Hawkesbury Nepean Catchment Management Authority (CMA) in the lead when it comes to keeping track of just what's going on in the region.

The CMA is developing a database to monitor natural resource management activities, past and present. According to the CMA it's the first time in Australia high resolution imagery covering an entire catchment has been used to prepare datasets.

Funding

The project is funded with $100,000 from the Australian Government with support from the NSW Department of Natural Resources and the CMA.

"This database is really helping us look at what needs to be done in the catchment and check on how projects are performing," said Catchment Coordinator Aaron Smith.

"We're including historic as well as current data so we can look at changes over time.

"The information helps us exercise much better quality control in managing the catchment and will help us evaluate efforts under our Catchment Action Plan.

"It will also be a good tool in planning for the future."

Activities

The database, known as the Spatial Capture Attributes Tool - or SCAT, if that doesn't trip lightly off the tongue - will help reliable information to be compiled on:

• land management work carried out under different government programmes and private initiatives;
• changes over time in the condition of the land and the way people have managed it;
• work required to achieve regional catchment management priorities.

The first stage of the project compiled data for the upper Hawkesbury Nepean catchment areas of the Warragamba, Nepean, Cataract and Cordeaux dams.

This has included information from more than 450 projects such as:

• treating severe gully, stream bed and bank erosion and dryland salinity;
• protecting and restoring creek and river systems by fencing, removing willows and woody weeds, replanting creek and river banks and providing alternate water systems; and
• protecting and restoring remnant native vegetation.

SCAT data has been collected from various CMA and other land management projects in the region and brings together information on the position and state of:

• 1,415 structures built to help control gully erosion, many of which have been funded by landholders;
• 885 kilometres of fencing; and
• 490,330 trees.

The remainder of the catchment was recorded in the second stage of the project, which took place in late 2006.

More information

• Aaron Smith, Catchment Coordinator: aaron.j.smith@cma.nsw.gov.au

Australian Government NRM Team
GPO Box 787
Canberra ACT 2601 Australia
1800 552 008 (toll-free)

DEWHA  | DAFF  | australia.gov.au  | NAP  | NHT 
Caring for our Country is an Australian Government initiative jointly administered by the Australian Government departments of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry and the Environment, Water, Heritage and the Arts