Fletcherview Tropical Rangeland Phenocam Images and Phenology Data Collection 

Fixed cameras installed at the Fletcherview Tropical Rangeland SuperSite 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. Fletcherview Tropical Rangeland SuperSite was established in 2021 at James Cook University’s Fletcherview Research Station, a fully operational outback cattle station located 50 km west of Townsville, Queensland. The site is used for cattle grazing and is characterised by tall open savanna. The vegetation is dominated by native grasses such as blackspear and kangaroo grasses, as well as introduced species like buffel grass, signal grass and leucaena. Fletcherview typically experiences a dry and wet season, with most rainfall occurring between January and April. Other images collected at the site include photopoints, digital cover photography (DCP), and 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 Fletcherview Tropical Rangeland SuperSite is managed by James Cook University. Infrastructure at the site was funded under the Queensland Government’s Research Infrastructure Co-Investment Fund (RICF) for co-investment to the Terrestrial Ecosystem Research Network (TERN), a project of the Commonwealth’s National Collaborative Research Infrastructure Strategy (NCRIS). The flux tower on the Fletcherview Tropical Rangeland SuperSite is a member of OzFlux, the Australian and New Zealand flux research network. 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.