Wetland Monitoring

Client: Kaiwaiwai Dairies Ltd
Date: Ongoing
We developed and tested a remote sensing method to monitor the health of the Kaiwaiwai constructed wetland for Kaiwaiwai Dairies Ltd. The wetland is planted with native species covering nearly a hectare and was constructed in September 2014.
Ground-level monitoring of a constructed wetland is time-consuming, working in and along inundated areas can be labour intensive and includes a risk to personal health and safety. Often the functioning of a wetland is over or underestimated using conventional methods only. The owners of the Kaiwaiwai dairy farm needed a better understanding of the efficiency, biomass accumulation in the wetland and the carbon sequestration services that the wetland supplies. High-resolution UAV monitoring provides the opportunity for rapid data collection and decision-makers to “see landscape-scale patterns created by the locations of indicators relative to one another”. Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) monitoring seemed to be a viable and cost-effective method to enhance the ground level monitoring of the wetland.
Key Aspects:
- UAV photogrammetry and remote sensing
- Object detection and image interpretation
- Wetland mapping and health assessment
- Vegetation mapping and assessment
- 3D modelling and visualisation
- Adaptive management
Client: Kaiwaiwai Dairies Ltd
Date: Ongoing