Accessing ground cover products
How to access ground cover mapping products
Ground cover products are freely available at both state-wide and property-scale. Products vary from ready-to-use reports for an area of interest, to large data files suitable for technical users. While Landsat imagery has been used to produce each of the products, algorithms have also been applied to Sentinel-2 imagery to produce seasonal fractional cover.
Explore the data and create reports
VegMachine
VegMachine is an online tool that uses satellite imagery to summarise decades of change in Australia’s grazing lands. It’s simple to operate, easy to understand, and free to use. With VegMachine you can:
- generate comprehensive ground cover monitoring reports
- measure land cover change or estimate soil erosion rates
- view satellite image land cover products
- better understand the links between management, climate and cover in grazing land.
Forage
Forage is a web-based system which generates and distributes information relating to climate and pasture conditions at user-specified locations. It has ground cover reports available on request from The Long Paddock website.
Access the data for technical users
State-wide seasonal mosaics of ground cover, fractional cover and persistent green can be downloaded through the Terrestrial Ecosystem Research Network (TERN) via:
- Seasonal ground cover - Landsat, JRSRP, Australia Coverage
- Seasonal fractional cover - Landsat, JRSRP algorithm, Australia coverage
- Seasonal persistent green - Landsat, JRSRP algorithm, Australia coverage
The Sentinel seasonal fractional cover is available via:
- Seasonal fractional cover - Sentinel-2, JRSRP algorithm, Eastern and Central Australia coverage
- Monthly blended fractional cover - Landsat and Sentinel-2, JRSRP algorithm, Queensland coverage
The mosaics are in GeoTIFF format and are very large, up to 10 GB in size. Specialist GIS computer programs are required to view the imagery.
Contact us
For more information about accessing ground cover products, contact our Principal Scientist via email at deanna.vandenberg@des.qld.gov.au.