Monitoring vegetation health in Australia using remote sensing: a case study using eucalypts

Global environmental change is altering vegetation health, highlighting the urgent need for effective vegetation monitoring. Rapid advancements in remote sensing platforms allow for the monitoring of vegetation at the landscape-scale. Within Australia, eucalypt vegetation is vital for conservation efforts due to its high diversity, wide distribution, and critical role in maintaining ecosystem health and resilience. We use a systematic literature review to demonstrate the successful application of remote sensing, and to discuss the potential of remote sensing to monitor diverse aspects of changes in the health of eucalypt vegetation in Australia. The eucalypt vegetation in several regions, including important biodiversity centres, remains little studied by remote sensing approaches. Concerningly, location data for study sites was inadequately reported in most studies. Furthermore, many studies did not implement the best possible remote sensing approach; for example, higher-resolution satellite imagery was often not used despite being freely available.To Improve the monitoring of eucalypt vegetation health, we recommend extending the spatial coverage of the remote sensing of eucalypt vegetation to all key regions throughout Australia, using freely available satellite imagery at 3 m resolution in remote areas. Furthermore, the accuracy of locational data should be improved, reporting, the longitudes and latitudes of study areas as a minimum. Finally, the best possible remote sensing approach should be implemented, including the highest spatial resolution imagery and time-series imagery (where available). More inter-disciplinary collaboration between conservationists/ecologists and remote sensers, and the development of a framework that assists with the selection of appropriate remote sensing applications for monitoring vegetation health based on the focus and budget of a study could assist in navigating the complexities involved. These proposed improvements would allow more effective monitoring of changes in vegetation health, leading to better-informed choices for conserving eucalypt ecosystems in Australia under global change.