Spatial analysis of woody vegetation land cover change in Crows Nest Shire, QLD

Dunwoody, John Ernest (2007) Spatial analysis of woody vegetation land cover change in Crows Nest Shire, QLD. [USQ Project]

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Abstract

[Abstract]: Landsat 5 imagery for 1991, 1997 and 2005 was used to prepare a supervised classification of six land cover classes for Crows Nest Shire, Queensland Australia using ERDAS Imagine 9.1 software. The results exhibited good Overall Classification Accuracy. A Combinatorial AND
operation using ArcGIS Spatial Analysis Tools was used to compute the temporal interaction matrices for the six land cover classes for the two time periods.

The results showed considerable exchange of land use between all classes from 1991 to 1997 however, the net amounts of Woody Natural Vegetation and Non-woody Natural Vegetation remained approximately the same in 1997 as they were in 1991. The area under water, and Cropland and Built-up areas increased from 1991 to 1997. The area under Plantations remained effectively constant. From 1997 to 2005 the Woody Natural Vegetation area increased by 13% and the Non-woody Natural Vegetation decreased by 15%. The Plantation area remained steady, while the area under Cropland and Water Bodies decreased. The Builtup area continued to increase.

The effect of the increase in Woody Natural land cover on Vegetation Management Classes and Ecosystem biodiversity was further investigated using Queensland Herbarium Regional Ecosystem data for 2003. It was found that the increase in Woody Natural vegetation was likely to be due to an increase in woody weed species rather than enlargement or densification of remnant Woody Natural Vegetation. It was also found to be accompanied by a decrease in Endangered remnant ecosystems and an increase in the area of Of Concern and Not Of Concern remnant ecosystems.

These findings have important implications for future land management in Crows Nest Shire. Further research is recommended to confirm these preliminary results and to explore the spatial attributes of this change.

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Item Type:	USQ Project
Refereed:	No
Item Status:	Live Archive
Additional Information:	Author's full name on thesis is John Ernest but known as Ernest
Faculty/School / Institute/Centre:	Historic - Faculty of Engineering and Surveying - Department of Surveying and Land Information (Up to 30 Jun 2013)
Date Deposited:	29 Feb 2008 04:07
Last Modified:	02 Jul 2013 22:59
Uncontrolled Keywords:	spatial; woody vegetation; Crows Nest; Queensland; land management
Fields of Research (2008):	09 Engineering > 0909 Geomatic Engineering > 090902 Geodesy 09 Engineering > 0909 Geomatic Engineering > 090903 Geospatial Information Systems 09 Engineering > 0907 Environmental Engineering > 090703 Environmental Technologies
Fields of Research (2020):	37 EARTH SCIENCES > 3706 Geophysics > 370603 Geodesy 40 ENGINEERING > 4013 Geomatic engineering > 401302 Geospatial information systems and geospatial data modelling 40 ENGINEERING > 4011 Environmental engineering > 401102 Environmentally sustainable engineering
URI:	https://sear.unisq.edu.au/id/eprint/3943

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