High resolution mapping of moss beds at ASPA 135, Robinson Ridge and near the Red Shed at Casey, January 2010

Full description

Aerial photography was acquired in January 2010 from a remote controlled helicopter at three locations - Antarctic Specially Protected Area (ASPA) 135, Robinson Ridge and near the Red Shed at Casey. In addition, highly accurate terrain data (points) was collected at each area using differential GPS. A detailed Digital Elevation Model (DEM) was generated for each area using the terrain data.
The point data included the locations of small metal tags glued to rocks used for locating nearby quadrats. The quadrats have been used for long term monitoring of vegetation at ASPA 135 and Robinson Ridge. The quadrats were established in 2002/03 under AAS Project 1313 and have been monitored at approximately five yearly intervals under this project and the subsequent AAS Project 4036 (Chief Investigator: Professor Sharon Robinson, University of Wollongong).
Near the Red Shed, an outline of the moss beds, streamlines and the general edge of the melt lake were captured using differential GPS.
At Robinson Ridge, streamlines and the snowline were captured using differential GPS.
The GPS data has an estimated horizontal accuracy of 2 cm.
A georeferenced mosaic was created from the aerial photography for each area.

ASPA 135 dataset:
aspa135dem - DEM in ESRI grid format
aspa135shade - hillshade in ESRI grid format, derived from aspa135dem ASPA135_quadrat_markers - shapefile with the locations of the quadrat markers ASPA135_roversall - shapefile with all the differentially corrected GPS data
ASPA135_UAVmosaic2010 - georeferenced aerial photograph mosaic

Casey Red Shed dataset:
redsheddem - DEM in ESRI grid format
redshedshade - hillshade in ESRI grid format, derived from aspa135dem
UAVphoto_2010 - georeferenced aerial photograph mosaic RedShed_lake - shapefile with the general edge of the melt lake RedShed_moss_outline - shapefile with the 'outline' of the moss beds (quite a conservative outside edge) RedShed_streamline - shapefile with the streamlines RedshedWetness - Topographic wetness index in PCRaster format

Robinson Ridge dataset:
Robbos_quadrat_markers - shapefile with the locations of the quadrat markers Robbos_rover_all - shapefile with all the differentially corrected GPS data
Robbos_mosaic2010 - georeferenced aerial photograph mosaic Robbos_snowline - shapefile with the snowline Robbos_streams - shapefile with the streamlines

The above three datasets also include an ArcMap document displaying the data.

For further information see the paper
Lucieer, A., Robinson, S., and Turner, D. (2010). Using an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) for ultra-high resolution mapping of Antarctic moss beds. In: Proceedings of the Australasian Remote Sensing and Photogrammetry Conference (15th ARSPC), Alice Springs, Australia, September 2010 which is available from a Related URL.

Lineage

Progress Code: completed

Statement: Information from Diana King of the School of Biological Sciences, University of Wollongong: The locations of the tags for the quadrats were collected on 22 and 23 January 2010 at ASPA 135 and on 24 January 2010 at Robinson Ridge. The estimated accuracy for these locations is 2 cm in X and Y, and 4 cm in Z.