Mapping and monitoring persistent pools using remote sensing to support river resilience

Start date: 02/02/2025
End date: 30/06/2027
NESP funding: $590,000 (GST-exclusive)

This project focuses on developing innovative tools using satellite imagery to map and monitor persistent pools (waterholes) within Australian rivers and floodplains. Persistent pools are vital water resources, especially under climate change and growing water use. They are crucial for ecosystems, providing habitats for species, sustaining ecological processes and serving as refuges during dry periods. The project will use satellite data from Landsat, Sentinel and Planetscope to map these pools, assess their dynamics, and predict future changes under various climate and water-use scenarios. The findings will support sustainable management strategies, including water allocation, climate adaptation and conservation efforts, with case studies in the Martuwarra Fitzroy River (WA), Gilbert River (Qld) and the Ovens River in Northern Victoria.

Persistent pools are challenging to map due to their dynamic nature, shifting with changes in flow and precipitation. Current methods do not adequately capture these fluctuations, leading to potential underestimation of the area of persistent pools. The increasing demand for water resources, combined with climate change, underscores the need for better mapping and monitoring techniques. Remote sensing offers an efficient, cost-effective way to track these dynamic features across large areas, providing historical and real-time data to inform management decisions. This project aims to fill the gap in current methods by integrating data from multiple satellites and analysing the ecological and socio-cultural implications of pool dynamics.

Key research areas

This project aims to:

• develop and refine remote sensing methods for mapping and monitoring persistent pools
• analyse pool stability, shape, and changes over time using historical and current satellite data
• model future scenarios based on climate and water use projections
• support planning and management decisions with science-based tools and visualisations
• integrate findings with ongoing Indigenous partnerships and traditional knowledge, particularly in the Martuwarra Fitzroy catchment.

The results will be used to identify vulnerable pools and inform conservation strategies, with outputs including spatial datasets, vulnerability maps and an automated analytical algorithm for spatiotemporal analysis.

Pathway to impact

This project will:

• support collaboration with river managers will ensure the practical application of the developed methods in management contexts, such as water allocation planning, climate adaptation and threatened species management
• through case studies, support water allocation decisions in the Martuwarra Fitzroy River and the Gulf region, while also informing management practices for threatened fish species in Northern Victoria
• enable the methods and insights gained to be transferable to other regions, supporting consistent and scalable monitoring of persistent pools and contributing to long-term ecological sustainability and informed policy decisions.