Assessment Item 2 - Environmental monitoring challenge - PROPOSAL Due Date: 28 Oct 2018 Contribution to unit grade: 10% Length:1000 words (ENV306); 1500 words (ENV506) Students are required to address...

Running Head: Environmental Monitoring Challenge Proposal
Environmental Monitoring Challenge Proposal 7
Assessment 2
Environmental Monitoring Challenge -Proposal
Scientific Report Proposal
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Introduction
Defining the Problem: The Environmental Monitoring involves addressing the problem of landscape change analysis, detecting the long term changes to vegetation at Tiwi Islands since 2000 till date with help of Landsat Satellite Imaging Technique
The assessment monitors the impact of plantation forestry operations on biodiversity and natural ecosystem of the islands. The forestry operations transform the natural tropical savanna forests into monoculture plantation which alters the habitat of many endangered indigenous animal species and vegetation composition of the ecosystem. The land managers also burn the adjacent blocks of land at frequent intervals to minimize the risk of spreading the fire in the plantation areas. Alterations in surface reflectance may also potentially cause changes in local climate, meanwhile also altering the natural fire regime in the native vegetative areas.
The tiwi islands are the home of several extinct and native mammal species that are found nowhere is North Te
itory. That’s why their monitoring and evaluation is necessary.There is observed a remarkable decline in the number of mammals in Northern Australia from 2000 to 2018 due to predation by feral animals, the absence of traditional practices of burning and grazing by large size cattles (Threatened Species Recovery Hub, 2018).
Overview
The remote sensing is a cost effective and time efficient way to monitor the land areas which are important for the conservation of biodiversity and ecosystem, evaluates the main indicators of ecological change (such as land covered, and distu
ances) in protected areas of Tiwi Islands.
The remote sensing and spatial techniques employs satellite imaging techniques to remotely sense the vegetation and land use and land cover change. Various operational programs in Australia are based on spatial information and remote sensing data extraction techniques. The techniques involve numerous datasets like Ecosystem indicators, Digital elevation Models, Climate data sets, Land cover data sets, Soil maps and Digital maps (Crabtree et al,2009). Sensing methods may detect measures of relevant vital signs like the occu
ence and intensity of fire, change in the pattern of land use, conversion of habitat type and detection of intruder species (Cameron et al,2006).
The Landsat products like Operational Land Imager and Enhanced Thematic Mapper Plus monitors the land covers at the historical and regional level. High spatial Resolution techniques like Quickbird are also used for detecting the land use and land cover areas. Landsat provides freely available data and is effective to measure the vegetation. Selection of appropriate temporal and spatial resolution provides effective change detection utilizing the binary comparison employed during the two different time periods.
Remote sensing and spatial detection is extremely useful in vegetation measurements, moisture, chlorophyll content, Nitrogen and Lignin Content, and stress in vegetation. Change Detection Applications such as Uniform Change Detection, Land Use and Land Cover Change, Continuous Change Detection are adopted to measure the rate of forestry operations in the islands.
Aims and Objectives
The proposal investigates the...