Mitchell Grass Rangeland Phenocam Images and Phenology Data Collection 

Fixed cameras installed at the Mitchell Grass Rangeland Site 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. Mitchell Grass Rangeland Site is located at Rosebank Station, approximately 11 km south-east of Longreach, Queensland. The site is characterised by black vertosol soil and arid tussock grassland with a variety of grass species including Astrebla lappacea and Astrebla squarrosa that supports sheep and beef cattle grazing. For additional site information, see Mitchell Grass Rangeland SuperSite . Other images collected at the site include photopoint 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. Mitchell Grass Rangelands site is located on a property formerly known as Rosebank research station. Equipment and data collection are managed by Queensland University of Technology (QUT). This work was funded by the Terrestrial Ecosystem Research Network (TERN), an Australian Government National Collaborative Research Infrastructure Strategy (NCRIS) project. 

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.