VegMachine.net. Online land cover analysis for the rangelands

VegMachine.net is an online land cover monitoring tool unded by the Fitzroy Basin Association (FBA). The tool focuses primarily on Queensland, but has functionality for much of Australia’s rangelands. The website went live in July 2016 and recently logged the 1000th user session. Users can view seven different seasonal time series of cover products across the landscape and interactively interrogate and graph ground cover change in six different on-the-fly and email delivered reports. Results can then be exported for use in other software. To date, users have generated over 400 VegMachine® FORAGE ground cover reports which provide paddock-by-paddock, landtype-by-landtype analysis of ground cover change from 1990 to the present. Detailed help is available in multiple formats, including website popups and a dedicated YouTube channel. The web application was designed for two main user groups; technically equipped RD&E personnel including those servicing land manager clients, and a subset of the grazier community willing to operate the service themselves. Initial rollout of the application focused primarily on training events for government agency, private consultancy and natural resource management (NRM) staff in regional Queensland. These users form the core of the current user base. In this paper, we outline the development of VegMachine.net. We demonstrate the primary functionality of the website, provide an overview of user experience including a case study and discuss major learnings and future directions

VegMachine.net. online land cover analysis for the Australian rangelands

This paper documents the development and use of the VegMachine.net land cover monitoring tool. From 2002 to 2015, VegMachine® software was used by government agencies, natural resource management (NRM) groups and individual pastoralists in northern Australia to assess and benchmark vegetation cover levels. In 2016 the VegMachine.net website was launched to build a wider user base and assure service continuity. Users can now graph historical (1990-) cover on one or more user defined areas of interest (AOI), produce comprehensive paddock-by-paddock property monitoring reports, and view a range of land cover raster images through the website map panel. In its first 32 months of operation 913 users logged 1604 sessions on the website and more than 1000 of the website's most comprehensive monitoring reports were distributed to users. Levels of use varied 26% of users (n = 237) have used the website more than once, and within this group a smaller set of regular users (n = 36) have used the site more than five times, in many cases to provide analyses to multiple clients. We outline four case studies that document the significant impact VegMachine.net has had on users including graziers, government agencies, NRM groups and researchers. We also discuss some possible paths forward that could widen the user base and improve retention of first time users. © 2019 The State of Queensland (through the Department of Agriculture and Fisheries) 2019 Open Access

Where we go and what we do : mapping the extension footprint of Animal Science

We trialled a process to map the footprint of Animal Science (AS) extension activities. This included aggregating existing extension records from eight separate datasets, mapping these records to agricultural property locations, and developing a set of tools and data sets with which AS staff can interrogate and present the spatialised data. We were able to map more than 4996 interactions with agricultural producers on agricultural properties covering 30% of the state. While not a complete record of AS extension activities, this is the most substantial attempt to map extension activities in AS from February 2002 to date, and for many of the contributing projects, the first time they were able to see their work mapped. We also generated four tiers of tools and datasets with which AS staff can investigate and summarise their extension data. These include a full spatial file geodatabase which support advanced analysis in ArcGIS software; map packages ready for use in ArcReader software and suitable for users with very limited spatial skills; Excel spreadsheets and pivot tables for analysis by staff with moderate data analysis skills; and prepared PDF maps suitable for simple presentation of footprint areas. We also developed a plan for future mapping of the AS extension footprint. The plan is not for a simple continuation of the work done here. It defines a clear goal for future work, and identifies five critical requirements for a viable long term effort that produces timely accessible spatial information for all levels of staff. These requirements should improve on the efficiency of the current work without adding to the workload of the extension staff

GrazingFutures: Learnings from a contemporary collaborative extension program in rangeland communities of western Queensland, Australia

Producer reliance on drought subsidies instead of proactive planning and timely destocking in low rainfall years has prompted Queensland government investment in promoting business and drought resilience. GrazingFutures (AUD $6M budget, 2016 - 2022) is an extension project focused on enhancing business management skills of extensive livestock producers in western Queensland, Australia. The region’s rangelands are in productivity decline, span 1M km2 and are managed by graziers operating more than 2,400 livestock businesses (beef, sheep and goats). The Queensland Department of Agriculture and Fisheries delivers GrazingFutures as a component of the Drought and Climate Adaptation Program, in partnership with regional natural resource management groups and other public and private organisations. Project delivery emphasised upskilling multi-agency staff and livestock producers to promote practice change within three whole of business themes; grazing land management, animal production and people-business. Three independent surveys (2018, 2019, 2020) indicated positive practice change was occurring in grazing businesses as a consequence of the project. Graziers instigated management changes even under major environmental challenges including extended drought (2013 – 2020), an extreme flood event in 2019 and the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic. This paper details the rationale, progress against the objectives, challenges and future direction of the GrazingFutures extension project

VegMachine - putting pastoralists in the picture

Australia’s rangelands are the extensive arid and semi-arid grazing lands that cover approximately 70% of the Australian continent. They are characterised by low and generally variable rainfall, low productivity and a sparse population. They support a number of industries including mining and tourism, but pastoralism is the primary land use. In some areas, the rangelands have a history of biological decline (Noble 1997), with erosion, loss of perennial native grasses and incursion of woody vegetation commonly reported in the scientific and lay literature. Despite our historic awareness of these trends, the establishment of systems to measure and monitor degradation, has presented numerous problems. The size and accessibility of Australia’s rangeland often mitigates development of extensive monitoring programs. So, too, securing on-going commitment from Government agencies to fund rangeland monitoring activities have led to either abandonment or a scaled-down approach in some instances (Graetz et al. 1986; Holm 1993). While a multiplicity of monitoring schemes have been developed for landholders at the property scale, and some have received promising initial uptake, relatively few have been maintained for more than a few years on any property without at least some agency support (Pickup et al. 1998). But, ironically, such property level monitoring tools can contribute significantly to local decisions about stock, infrastructure and sustainability. Research in recent decades has shown the value of satellites for monitoring change in rangelands (Wallace et al. 2004), especially in terms of tree and ground cover. While steadily improving, use of satellite data as a monitoring tool has been limited by the cost of the imagery, and the equipment and expertise needed to extract useful information from it. A project now under way in the northern rangelands of Australia is attempting to circumvent many of the problems through a monitoring system that allows property managers to use long-term satellite image sequences to quickly and inexpensively track changes in land cover on their propertie

Targeting resource investments to achieve sediment reduction and improved Great Barrier Reef health

Concerns about excessive sediment loads entering the Great Barrier Reef (GBR) lagoon in Australia have led to a focus on improving ground cover in grazing lands. Ground cover has been identified as an important factor in reducing sediment loads, but improving ground cover has been difficult for reef stakeholders in major catchments of the GBR. To provide better information an optimising linear programming model based on paddock scale information in conjunction with land type mapping was developed for the Fitzroy, the largest of the GBR catchments. This identifies at a catchment scale which land types allow the most sediment reduction to be achieved at least cost. The results suggest that from the five land types modelled, the lower productivity land types present the cheapest option for sediment reductions. The study allows more informed decision making for natural resource management organisations to target investments. The analysis highlights the importance of efficient allocation of natural resource management funds in achieving sediment reductions through targeted land type investments. © 2012

Quantifying leucaena cultivation extent on grazing land

Leucaena is a perennial fodder crop that can significantly improve beef production across substantial parts of the world’s grazing lands. We surveyed leucaena cultivations across 350 000 km2 of Australia’s prime leucaena-growing region, using a new approach to quantify leucaena coverage and distribution. This approach uses high resolution imagery to detect leucaena by the distinctive alley cultivation pattern that is typical in the region and in many other parts of the world. We estimated there are ~123 500 ha of leucaena in the study region. Although no prior estimate of leucaena coverage has been based on exactly the same geographic area, our data strongly suggest that recent published estimates of leucaena coverage for Queensland and Australia are substantial overestimates. In addition to providing robust estimates of total leucaena coverage, we demonstrate how the method can also contribute to other survey objectives such as comparison of actual with potential spatial distribution, and assessment of statistical sampling power. We also discuss the potential application of the new method in international contexts