Evaluating Satellite Monitoring of Vegetation Health With Fauna Habitat Managers in Mind

ABSTRACT In Australia, pastoralists, not‐for‐profit, and government organisations are managing stands of open woodland to conserve threatened species' habitats. These land areas are usually larger than a cropping field but smaller than many National Parks in Australia. In this age of broad‐scale satellite remote sensing of Earth and its environment, the question is: can free, high‐resolution satellite imagery provide as much efficacy for vegetation trend monitoring as commercial ultra‐high spatial resolution imagery? We undertook a spatial analysis of several pairs of Maxar WorldView (WV) and European Space Agency (ESA) Sentinel‐2 (S2) images and two ‘paddock scale’ properties with the budget‐strapped threatened species' habitat manager in mind. We found moderate to strong correlations comparing image data sets for standard vegetation health indices (NDVI, NDRE and LAI). We conclude that the habitat manager can streamline their threatened species open‐woodland monitoring budget using Sentinel‐2 images for vegetation assemblage health trend monitoring.