Daintree Rainforest, Cow Bay Phenocam Images and Phenology Data Collection 

Fixed cameras installed at TERN Daintree Rainforest SuperSite, Cow Bay provide a time series of fine scale data as a long-term record of vegetation structure and condition. This dense time series of phenocam images provides data for analysis of ecological responses to climate variability, and when consolidated across the entire terrestrial ecosystem research network, supports calibration and validation of satellite-derived remote sensing data, ensuring delivery of higher quality results for broader scale environmental monitoring products. Images are captured half hourly during daylight hours. Images and data products, including timeseries of the Green Chromatic Coordinate (Gcc) for a region-of-interest (ROI) that delineates an area of specific vegetation type, are made available on an almost real-time basis. TERN Daintree Rainforest SuperSite, Cow Bay is classed as complex mesophyll vine forest and has an average canopy height of 30 m. The site has 91 species with dominant canopy trees belonging to the Arecaceae, Euphorbiaceae, Rutaceae, Meliaceae, Myristicaceae and Icacinaceae families. For additional site information, see https://www.tern.org.au/tern-observatory/tern-ecosystem-processes/daintree-rainforest-supersite/. Other images collected at the site include ancillary images of fauna and flora. 

We at TERN acknowledge the Traditional Owners and Custodians throughout Australia, New Zealand and all nations. We honour their profound connections to land, water, biodiversity and culture and pay our respects to their Elders past, present and emerging. The site is managed by the Daintree Discovery Centre and the TERN infrastructure is managed by James Cook University. This work was jointly funded by the Terrestrial Ecosystem Research Network (TERN), an Australian Government National Collaborative Research Infrastructure Strategy (NCRIS) project. We at TERN acknowledge the Traditional Owners and Custodians throughout Australia, New Zealand and all nations. We honour their profound connections to land, water, biodiversity and culture and pay our respects to their Elders past, present and emerging. 

Time series of vegetation phenological observations are collected to understand ecosystems annual cycles. Phenological timeseries can be used for ground-truthing remote sensing data products, for studies of climate change impacts on terrestrial ecosystems, and as a standard for earth system models. 

For generating ROI chromatic indices the python library vegindex (0.7.2) in python is used. For calculating hazeness values the R hazer (1.1.1.) and jpeg (0.1) libraries are used.