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Wetland Mapping, Channel Country Bioregion Department for Environment and Heritage Wetland Mapping Channel Country bioregion, South Australia www.environment.sa.gov.au Wetland Mapping Channel Country bioregion, South Australia. P. Wainwright1, Y. Tunn2, D. Gibson2 and J. Cameron2 1 Land Management Branch, Department for Environment and Heritage, SA. 2 Environmental Information, Department for Environment and Heritage, SA TABLE OF CONTENTS PART ONE - GENERAL DISCUSSION EXECUTIVE SUMMARY………………………………………………………………………………………………….…….….…1 1.0 INTRODUCTION………………………………………………………………………………………………………………......2 1.1.Cooper Creek.......................................................................................................................................................2 1.2. Diamantina River.................................................................................................................................................2 1.3. Georgina River ....................................................................................................................................................2 1.4. Why are the wetlands in the Channel Country significant?.................................................................................4 1.5. Wetland definition................................................................................................................................................5 1.6. Wetland characteristics .......................................................................................................................................5 1.7. Important wetland sites within the Channel Country bioregion. ..........................................................................6 2.0 RESULTS…………………………………………………………………………………………………......................………..9 2.1. Coongie Lakes Ramsar Site ...............................................................................................................................9 2.2. Coongie National Park ........................................................................................................................................9 2.3. Permanent water bodies .....................................................................................................................................9 2.4 Plant communities associated with wetlands in the Channel Country……………………………...…….....………9 3.0 DISCUSSION…………………………………………………………………………………………............………..….….…11 3.1. Effects of wetting and drying on plant community composition………………………….........…...………….…...11 3.2. Hydrology………………………………………………………………………………………………..………….…….11 4.0 SUMMARY…………………………………………………………………………………………………………..……………13 5.0 MAPS………………………………………………………………………………………………………..…………………14-17 5.1 Frequency of Inundation, wetlands Cooper Creek………………………….……………………....…………….…..14 5.2 Frequency of inundation, wetlands Diamantina River………………………………………………...…....….……..15 5.3 Wetlands, maximum extent……………………………………………………………………………....…….………..16 5.4 Coongie National Park, vegetation mapping and wetland extent…………………………………………….……...17 PART TWO - TECHNICAL DISCUSSION 1.0. DATA………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….…………..18 1.1. Selection of imagery……………………………………………………………………………………….…………….18 2.0 METHODOLOGY………………………………………………………………………………………… ……………………..23 2.1. Radiometric and Geometric Corrections ...........................................................................................................23 2.2. Shadow Effects .................................................................................................................................................23 2.3. Image Classification ..........................................................................................................................................25 2.4. Filter ..................................................................................................................................................................28 2.5. Data processing from raster format to vector format.........................................................................................28 3.0. RESULTS………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….……..29 3.1. Water features……………………………………………………………………………………………………………29 3.2. Maximum wetland extent. .................................................................................................................................32 3.3. Frequency of inundation....................................................................................................................................33 3.4. Coongie Lakes Ramsar Site .............................................................................................................................35 3.5. Coongie National Park ......................................................................................................................................35 3.6. Permanent water bodies ...................................................................................................................................35 4.0 GLOSSARY……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….37 5.0 REFERENCES…………………………………………………………………………………………………………..……37-39 List of Figures GENERAL DISCUSSION Figure 1.1. Study Area Channel Country bio-region, SA……………………………………………..…….………..…….……….…3 Figure 1.2. Rainfall isohyets……………………………………………………………………………..……….…….…..…………….4 TECHNICAL DISCUSSION Figure 1.1. Trajectory of the Landsat satellite across the study area…………….………..……………….………….……...……17 Figure 1.2. Landsat Images in Diamantina River (Path 98 & 99)……………………………………….………....…………...…...21 Figure 13. Landsat Images in Cooper Creek (Path 97)………………..…………………………………………..………...…..…..22 Figure 2.1 Shadow effects adjacent to Cullyamurra Waterhole………….………………………………….....….…………….23-24 Figure 3.1. Classified images in Diamantina River…………………………….…………………………….…….…….……………29 Figure 3.2. Classified images in Cooper Creek……………………………….………………………………………………......…..30 Figure 3.3. The maximum wetland extent with an additional image …………….……………………………….........….….…….31 Figure 3.4. Frequency of flood occurrence…………………………………….……………………………….………….…..………33 Figure 3.5 The frequency of occurrence with pixel values corresponding to the year of flood occurrence….………...………34 Figure 3.6. Wetlands inundated in all images………………………….…….………………………………………….….…………35 List of Tables GENERAL DISCUSSION Table 2.1 Species associated with floodplain vegetation………………………………………….………...…………………..…..11 Table 3.1 Areal wetland extents as determined by Landsat imagery…… ……………………….………………………………..12 TECHNICAL DISCUSSION Table 1.1 Selected flood data for the Diamantina River………………………………………….……..…………..……………….19 Table 1.2 Dates, Landsat imagery, Diamantina River….………………………………………………………………………….…19 Table 1.3 Selected flood data for the Cooper Creek……………………………………………….……….…………….………….20 Table 1.4 Landsat imagery dates for the Cooper Creek………………………………………………….……….…………………20 Table 3.1. Frequency index (Cooper) developed from a series of five Landsat images……………….………...........………...26 Table 3.2. Frequency index developed from a series of six Landsat images………………………….……….…..………….27-28 Table 4.1 Areal wetland extents as determined by Landsat imagery…… …………………………………….…………………..32 Table 4.2 Inundation statistics………………………………………………………………………………….……………………….33 This report may be cited as: Wainwright, P., Tunn, Y., Gibson, D. and Cameron, J. (2006) Wetland mapping, Channel Country bioregion, South Australia. Department for Environment and Heritage, Adelaide. Funding Source Australian Government, Department of the Environment and Heritage. Acknowledgments The authors would like to acknowledge the advice and support of the following people. Belinda McGrath-Steer (DEH), Matt Miles (DEH), Michaela Birrell (DEH), Mary-Anne Healy (DEH), David Thompson (DEH), David Hart (DEH), Roman Urban (DEH), Claire Harding (DEH), Alun Hoggett (Desert Channels, Queensland), Louise Jones (DEH), Laura Phipps (DWLBC), Glen Scholz (DWLBC), Roger Jaensch (Wetlands International, Oceania) and Julian Reid (CSIRO). Peter Canty (DEH) for cover photographs. The Queensland Environment Protection Authority, for advice and data sharing. Particularly, Mike Ronan, Arthur Knight, Daniel Tindall, Vanessa Bailey, and Bruce Wilson. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY The South Australian Channel Country bioregion occupies an area of 56,000km2 and is located in the far north-eastern corner of South Australia. The Cooper Creek, Diamantina River and to a lesser extent the Georgina River are the iconic desert channels in the study area. They support an internationally exceptional suite of ephemeral and semi-permanent wetlands of varying sizes and inundation frequencies. These systems are recognised both nationally and internationally as unique, largely unregulated water resources which support systems of high biodiversity and endemism (Reid and Gillen, 1988). The Channel Country is an extensive natural irrigation system in the centre of the world’s driest populated continent (White, 2001). The wetlands of the Channel Country are unique because their regime is determined by remote rainfall events in Queensland and is sourced as ‘overland flow’ when major channels flood. The presence of water in the arid dunefield environment of the Strzelecki Desert is quite exceptional aesthetically and ecologically, and could not be sustained by localised rainfall alone. The Cooper Creek is probably the longest and most important dryland river in Australia and one of the largest inwardly draining catchments in the world (Kingsford, Curtin and Porter, 1999). An icon within the Cooper Creek catchment is the cluster
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