Field Testing Satellite-Derived Vegetation Health Indices for a Koala Habitat Managers Toolkit

A Central Queensland University (CQU) partnership with the Government National Park management agency has developed a koala (Phascolarctos cinereus) habitat managers’ toolkit for vegetation health assessment. Private and public landholders use field-based to assess suitability or monitor conservation outcomes koala—an iconic Australian arboreal herbivorous marsupial. The was upgraded recently instructions process European Space Agency (ESA) Sentinel-2 multispectral satellite-derived selected maps areal trend monitoring. field campaign sought validate relatively coarse spatial resolution derived indices (photosynthetic health, leaf area index water content) verify their decision-support toolkit. Other user requirement-driven criteria including remote sensing in were imagery associated processing software costs ease of map production managers without cost-effective access science skills. Despite moderate-to-low image proxy correlations, discussing results stakeholders indicates that, at landscape scale, cost-free, suitable temporal resolution, 10-m is satisfactory when aligned design