Webinar Geoscience Australia & DEA – satellite & computers for agriculture now, with mining next.
This presentation showcased the satellite-based technology that could possibly be applied to the Indonesian ESDM needs to manage the responsible operating mines, along with the thousands of small-scale mines that are now under the responsibility of the Minister of Mines & Energy.
On 20 August 2020, Geoscience Australia [GA] supported the presentation of Digital Earth Australia [DEA] Quarterly Showcase. DEA seeks to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of the Australian Government’s investments, and improve how we manage our natural resources. Essentially DEA uses satellite data and machine learning to quantitively measure surface features such as water, mining, infrastructure development.
Claire Krause, DEA & Dr. Ivars Reinfelds, NRAR presented “DEA & New south Wales NRAR collaboration on the project to determine – Where are the water bodies across the Murray Darling Basin [MDB], and how is the water in them changing over time? There are 295,902 mapped water bodies across Australia, of which 58,493 are in the MDB. A record of the last 30 years water surface areas for each water body (streams, lakes, farmers dams etc) are recorded (down to 5 pixels). This is open data [ see https://maps.dea.ga.gov.au/ ]. This work helped the Australian Government in the MDB water management program. Using LIDAR, the volumes of many water bodies can be estimated. This technique helps reduce time & cost for ground measurements needed to undertake government monitoring of the basin surface water resources.
Phil Delaney, FrontierSI [ [email protected] ] presented “Harvesting the benefits of Earth Observation”. There are three areas of DEA Industry Strategy, 1) data & technology, developing technology with industry, 2) education and training, and the focus of this presentation being 3) awareness in reaching out to Australia. DEA has recently released a agriculture Market Report at www.frontiersi.com.au/dea , with user profiles including farmers and agriculture researchers etc. A similar Mining Report is in preparation, with plans to issue before end of 2020. Phil is open to receive suggestions on this subject.
John Harvey, managing director, AgriFutures Australia spoke without slides. [email protected] John spoke on a recent survey of what city people value from farmers. Surprisingly many felt responsible farming & care for the environment was more popular than providing food & fibre for our daily needs. The use of satellite data and computer algorithms are one way to build “trust” between industry and the people / government institutions. The development and support of “start-ups” is an essential part of bringing the benefits of such technology to the community. Start ups can deliver results often faster than some established research intuitions (CSIRO etc).