EcoScience NT Services

Over the past 3 decades EcoScience NT has been commissioned for numerous Environmental Impact Assessment and Monitoring studies across Northern Australia. Many of these have been associated with mining and coastal development projects particularly for the oil & gas industry.

Scientific services

EcoScience NT provides a range of scientific consultancy services across Northern Australia. Our small team consists of professional environmental scientists with extensive local experience and a strong network of specialist sub-consultants. Although our expertise lies in mangrove ecology, we also possess sound knowledge of terrestrial habitats and freshwater ecosystems in the Top End.

Our range of services include:

scientists assessing environmental impact in mangrove wetland

Environmental Impact Assessment

Utricularia Singeriana Photo Kym Brennan

Biodiversity Surveys – terrestrial flora & fauna

Mangrove Monitoring – flora & invertebrate fauna

Mangrove Rehabilitation

Ecological Studies & Habitat Evaluation

Wetlands – saline, intertidal & freshwater habitats

Fire Ecology & Weed Management

Environmental Health Monitoring & Reporting

Post-mining Vegetation Rehabilitation & Monitoring Studies

RPAS (Remotely Piloted Aircraft System) Drone Services

Remotely piloted aircraft system (RPAS) technoloty has developed rapidly and is now a highly effective way to capture detailed information, particularly in difficult to access environments such as mangroves.

The high resolution imagery captured by RPAS has the capacity to provide quantitative information at scales equivalent to field data and is used by EcoScience to characterise, map and monitor mangrove and terrestrial vegetation.

RPAS Equipment

EcoScience has a DJI Phantom 4 Multispectroal drone coupled with a D-RTK-2 Mobile base station. From this RPAS platform, both true colour (RGB) and multispectral (Red, Green, Blue, Red edge and Near Infrared) imagery is collected during missions. This information is used to digitally map vegetation and to monitor the health or status of vegetation within defined areas – at scales varying from individual trees, to 10 m x 10 m monitoring plots to larger polygons covering several hectares.

EcoScience has a DJI Phantom 4, one of two drones used for scientific monitoring. The DJI Phantom 4-M drone has a multispectral camera array that can capture bands in RGB, red-edge and near infrared wavelenths.

NDVI

During RPAS surveys, on- ground assessment of mangrove forest health is supplemented with remotely sensed RPAS data capturing one of the common vegetation health indices – the Normalised Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI). This enables the production of detailed RGB and DNVI maps for specific sites under investigation, but also includes broad-scale mapping of mangrove plant health across large areas.

Electromagnetic spectrum (nm) and the visible spectral bands Blue, Green and Red and invisible bands, Red Edge, Near-infrared wavelengths (left) captured by the DJI Phantom 4 Multispectral camera array (right)

Reflectance of red and near-infrared (NIR) spectral bands from stressed and healthy vegetation and the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) equation used to derive the vegetation index valve. NDVI ranges between -1 to +1

The health maps gernerated using NDVI are used to monitor future changes in vitality and extent, including changes in zonation and canopy cover.

Examples of true colour and NDVI images of mangrove communities captured by the P4 M platform

True colour orthomosaic showing ground control points and six 10 m x 10 m monitoring plots in different mangrove assemblages. RPAS allows monitoring within both small plots and within larger monitoring polygons

Orthomosaic 3D model generated from a P4-M survey (A) and a height measurement of a mangrove tree calculated from a three-dimensional (3D) point cloud dataset (B)

Macro Photography Imaging Services

To document the extraordinary range of mangrove invertebrate fauna recorded during biological surveys, Adam Bourke from EcoScience has developed an excellent macrophotography image system. We use an Olympus SZX-16 stereo microscope configured with a Nikon D7000 digital SLR 16.2 megapixel camera. This allows viewing of live or preserved samples from which we can take still images or video (specimens as small as 1 mm).

We also have a 40 litre marine aquarium tank where we can capture digital stills or video of small marine animals such as fish, molluscs, corals and crustaceans. Our macro photographic imaging service can be done in both the laboratory and on site. We can also offer digital image processing services.

The stunning photographs below are a selection of images taken by Adam Bourke.