Assessing spatial information access, use and sharing for catchment management in Australia

Spatial data plays an important role in many social, environmental, economic and political decisions and is increasingly acknowledged as a national resource essential for sustainable development. One of the potential areas where spatial data can make a positive impact is for improved decision making to support catchment management. Reliable spatial data infrastructure (SDI) is needed to record the environmental, social and economic dimensions of catchment management. By building an appropriate SDI, disparate spatial data can be accessed and utilised to facilitate the exchange and sharing of spatial data between stakeholders across catchment communities. The aim of this paper is to identify the factors/variables contributing to spatial information access, sharing and use across catchment management areas and evaluate the current status of spatial information access, sharing and use among Australian states from a catchment management authority perspective. A survey method was used to collect primary data from 56 regional natural resource management (NRM) bodies responsible for catchment management in Australia. Descriptive statistics method was used to show the similarities and differences among Australian states. The key factors which influence sharing and access to spatial information are also explored. We found there is significant for spatial information access, use and sharing to contribute to SDI development

Spatial modelling of adaptation strategies for urban built infrastructures exposed to flood hazards

The recent 2010/2011 floods in the central and southern Queensland (Australia) prompted this research to investigate the application of geographical information system (GIS) and remote sensing in modelling the current flood risk, adaptation/coping capacity, and adaptation strategies. Identified Brisbane City as the study area, the study aimed to develop a new approach of formulating adaptation/coping strategies that will aid in addressing flood risk management issues of an urban area with intensive residential and commercial uses. Fuzzy logic was the spatial analytical tool used in the integration of flood risk components (hazard, vulnerability, and exposure) and in the generation of flood risk and adaptation capacity indices. The research shows that 875 ha, 566 ha, and 828 ha were described as areas with relatively low, relatively moderate, and relatively high risk to flooding, respectively. Identified adaptation strategies for areas classified as having relatively low (RL), relatively moderate (RM), relatively high (RH), and likely very high (LVH) adaptation/coping capacity were mitigation to recovery phases, mitigation to response phases, mitigation to preparedness phases, and mitigation phase, respectively. Integrating the results from the flood risk assessment, quantitative description of adaptation capacity, and identification of adaptation strategies, a new analytical technique identified as flood risk-adaptation capacity index-adaptation strategies (FRACIAS) linkage model was developed for this study

Review of Australian land use mapping and land management practice

Land use information plays a vital role in effective management of natural resources in any country. The land use and land cover mapping is always a dynamic issue in every country because of the changing nature of the land use. Australia is experiencing similar traits. Knowledge of land use change patterns has important implications for sustainable development and sustainable environmental management. It helps in the management of water, soil, nutrients, plants and animals and provides relationship between land use dynamics and economics and social condition in urban and regional area. Although Australia has a long history of land use mapping and land management practice, no systematic study of the land use mapping status and land management practice can be confirmed. With the establishment of the Commonwealth Advisory Committee on the Environment in June 1972, later known as the Australian Advisory Committee on the Environment, the Australian government gave prime importance to land use and the environment. The committee recommended to the government that “Land use is fundamental to any consideration of the environment.” The committee also found an urgent need for an efficient, co-ordinated, and comprehensive system of national and state land use planning. Subsequently, many organizations and institutions like BRS, ACLUMP, CSIRO, QDERM, and DPI started on land cover/land use mapping from national to catchment level and many Land Care groups began working on land management the local level. This study reviews the status of the land use mapping and land management practices as implemented in Australi

The global cadastre

The article discusses whether a globally connected cadastre is possible. Most land transactions occur in domestic, national land markets. However, many parties are now looking beyond their borders. Indeed, international land trading is burgeoning: governments, businesses and citizens from various countries, whether rich or poor, are now actively engaged as buyers and sellers in global land deals. Basically, it is easier to transact in the global market than ever before: land is increasingly a global commodity. The world's interconnected financial markets support this growing level of international trade and investment but, as one saw with financial markets in 2008, the quality of these global systems should not be taken for granted. Such foreign investment in land is not new: international companies have been investing for some time in commercial development, housing and mineral exploration, and more recently agriculture too

Distance, multimedia and web delivery in surveying and GIS courses at the University Of Southern Queensland

[Abstract]: The University of Southern Queensland has been involved with the distance education of surveying courses for over 25 years. In recent times, staff of the Surveying and Land Information Discipline, and the University as a whole, have embarked on multimedia enhancement and web delivery of curricula. This paper examines some of the initiatives undertaken to enhance the delivery of educational materials and discusses some of the issues involved in the effective delivery of distance education materials. The significant experience in the delivery of traditional educational materials has proven to be an advantage in the repackaging and enhancement of teaching materials. Delivery of education to off-campus students requires a significant support infrastructure which is often not recognised by new entrants into the flexible delivery arena. Traditional support mechanisms such as phone, fax and standard media (eg. videos, audio tapes etc) are being replaced by email, ‘electronic’ discussion groups, CDs and internet resources. These enhancements, when developed professionally, require a significant commitment of resources and expertise and often require a team approach to their design and development. Access by off-campus students to internet services and affordable software packages also require careful consideration in the design and offering of distance education materials

A process for the accurate reconstruction of pre-filtered and compressed digital aerial images

The study of compression and decompression methods is crucial for storage and/or transmission of large numbers of image data which is required for archiving aerial photographs, satellite images and digital ortho-photos. Hence, the proposed work aims to increment the compression ratio (CR) of digital images in general. While emphasis is made on aerial images, the same principle may find applications to other types of raster based images. The process described here involves the application of pre-defined low-pass filters (i.e. kernels) prior to applying standard image compression encoders. Low-pass filters have the effect of increasing the dependence between neighbouring pixels which can be used to improve the CR. However, for this pre-filtering process to be considered as a compression instrument, it should allow for the original image to be accurately restored from its filtered counterpart. The development of the restoration process presented in this study is based on the theory of least squares and assumes the knowledge of the filtered image and the low-pass filter applied to the original image. The process is a variant of a super-resolution algorithm previously described, but its application and adaptation to the filtering and restoration of images, in this case (but not exclusively) aerial imagery, using a number of scales and filter dimensions is the expansion detailed here. An example of the proposed process is detailed in the ensuing sections. The example is also indicative of the degree of accuracy that can be attained upon applying this process to gray-scale images of different entropies and coded in a lossy or lossless mode

Flood inundation mapping using hydraulic modelling and GIS: a case study in the West Creek sub-catchment

In recent years, climate change has caused extreme climate conditions. This intensifies and increases the amount of rainfall that caused floods in many regions of the world. The recent floods in Queensland, Australia provide evidence of the effects of increased climate change to the state and its population. The flash flood that occurred on the 10th of January 2011 in the West Creek catchment in the City of Toowoomba was a sudden and unexpected event making it difficult to implement flood mitigating/preventive measures. To reduce the impact of flood damage, this study aimed to develop an improved flood inundation model in the part of West Creek catchment using Geographic information systems (GIS) and the HEC-RAS hydraulic model. A digital elevation model (DEM) derived from LiDAR data was the primary data source for flood modelling. The geometric data (e.g. stream centreline, banks, flow path centreline and cross-sections, etc.) were extracted from the DEM and used in the analysis. A high resolution satellite image was used to classify land cover. Roughness coefficients were assigned according to different land cover types. Field measurements were also conducted to support the modelling process. These include measuring culverts, stream cross-sections, etc. The result was flood inundation map that clearly shows the spatial extent of the flooded area along part of West Creek and lower elevation areas within the catchment

VGI and crowdsourced data credibility analysis using spam email detection techniques

Volunteered geographic information (VGI) can be considered a subset of crowdsourced data (CSD) and its popularity has recently increased in a number of application areas. Disaster management is one of its key application areas in which the benefits of VGI and CSD are potentially very high. However, quality issues such as credibility, reliability and relevance are limiting many of the advantages of utilising CSD. Credibility issues arise as CSD come from a variety of heterogeneous sources including both professionals and untrained citizens. VGI and CSD are also highly unstructured and the quality and metadata are often undocumented. In the 2011 Australian floods, the general public and disaster management administrators used the Ushahidi Crowd-mapping platform to extensively communicate flood-related information including hazards, evacuations, emergency services, road closures and property damage. This study assessed the credibility of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s Ushahidi CrowdMap dataset using a Naïve Bayesian network approach based on models commonly used in spam email detection systems. The results of the study reveal that the spam email detection approach is potentially useful for CSD credibility detection with an accuracy of over 90% using a forced classification methodology

Using geospatial tools to combat fire ants

State of the art geo-spatial information capture, storage and analysis is vital in the ongoing battle against Red Imported Fire Ants (RIFA). In this context, this informative article relates to how geo-spatial tools and techniques can play an important role in identifying potential sites of fire ant infestations and, at the same time, lend a hand in modelling and predicting the spread of these invasive pests

Development of a wireless system to measure the strain/deformation of rock bolts

In this study a smart set-up integrated with rock bolts was proposed to automatically monitor, record and analyse rock mass deformation. The proposed system which includes sensors and a wireless data acquisition system, rapidly and readily generates data sets along with customisable graphs, calculations and analysis in a cloud system and can be used in modern mining. To evaluate the developed technique, rock bolts were instrumented lengthwise using resistive strain gauges and then connected to the wireless data logger system. Elastic tensile tests as well as pull-out tests were conducted and the strain values along the rock bolts were successfully and accurately measured, recorded and uploaded to the cloud system