Title: Vegetation Survey and Mapping of the McArthur River Catchment,

Northern Territory.

Authors: Nicholas Cuff, Tahnee Thompson, Ben Sparrow, Peter Brocklehurst

The Vegetation Survey and Mapping of the McArthur River Catchment, which includes
portions of the Gulf Fall and Uplands, Gulf Coastal and Sturt Plateau Bioregions,
Northern Territory was conducted with the aim being to trial a robust method for
improving the resolution of vegetation mapping in tropical savannah systems. This
approach aimed to standardise the capture (in terms of both attributes and spatial
location) and assimilation of historical information into current, targeted data collection
and analysis programs for use in conjunction with remote sensed information in the
development of digital vegetation information products.

Field data was captured (historical information) or collected from a total of 799 locations
within the study area and analysed using hierarchical clustering methods to produce
preliminary mapping classes. Point based field data were allocated a preliminary
mapping class based on the floristic classification and buffered by a measure of site
homogeneity to create regions of interest for supervised image classification purposes.
Stepwise supervised classification was utilised to rapidly categorise Landsat 5 TM data
from the study area based on the spectral properties of individual pixels. Limited post-
processing of the classified mapping classes was then undertaken in vector format for
the final derivation of the polygon vegetation data. A total of 18 Broad Vegetation Groups,
comprising 56 Vegetation Communities were recognised and described from the analysis
of floristic and structural field data collected during the survey to the sub-association
level.

This approach allowed the rapid production of a 1:100 000 scale vegetation mapping
product, significantly improving the scale of information beyond the previous 1:1000 000
scale data that existed across the study area. This improvement in data resolution will be
of significant benefit for a range of land resource planning, assessment and management
purposes, including the delivery of improved planning and natural resource management
outcomes at the regional and property scales.