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Australia and Earth Observation

Geoscience Australia provides Earth observation services, expert advice, and information for decision makers.

Geoscience Australia is an active contributor to international bodies that coordinate the acquisition and use of Earth observation data. Geoscience Australia is an associate member of the international Committee on Earth Observation Satellites (CEOS), and is Australia’s principal representative to the intergovernmental Group on Earth Observation.

Geoscience Australia operates a ground station in Alice Springs, Northern Territory, to downlink data directly from the Landsat 7, Landsat 8, NOAA, TERRA, AQUA, and Suomi NPP satellites on a daily basis. Recent infrastructure refurbishments have now enabled Geoscience Australia to monitor and report on satellite health back to mission control, which it currently does for Landsat 8.

Partnerships with international operators of EOS satellite programmes, including the United States Geological Survey (USGS) and the European Commission and European Space Agency, also grant Geoscience Australia online access to historical data archives, the most recent acquisitions, as well as input to future acquisition scheduling. The data is stored by Geoscience Australia in a national archive and is utilised in production of current and next generation EOS products.

Geoscience Australia has developed extensive infrastructure and advanced systems for efficient processing and storage of large volumes of multi-temporal data. Geoscience Australia is leading the way in managing, cataloguing and processing large volumes of satellite and spatial imagery. This is enabled through Geoscience Australia working with the National Computational Infrastructure (NCI), the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO), CRCSI and other scientific collaborators to develop the next generation of EOS products and services. The result of this collaboration can be seen in the development of the Australian Geoscience Data Cube (AGDC).

Highly skilled and experienced scientific and technical staff allows Geoscience Australia to participate in a wide range of environmental analysis projects, collaborate on spatial policy and capability development with a wide range of partners, including the United States Geological Survey, Australian Bureau of Meteorology, CSIRO and many others.

Geoscience Australia's history dates back almost to Federation in 1901 when it was decided to set aside land for the national capital. This decision led to the establishment of the Australian Survey Office in 1910, when surveying began for the Australian Capital Territory.

Geoscience Australia came into being in 2001 when the Australian Surveying and Land Information Group (AUSLIG) merged with the Australian Geological Survey Organisation (AGSO).

AGSO's predecessor organisation the Bureau of Mineral Resources, Geology and Geophysics (BMR) was established in 1946; with the name changing to AGSO in 1992. BMR's main objective was the systematic geological and geophysical mapping of the continent as the basis for informed mineral exploration.

AUSLIG's main function was to provide national geographic information. It was formed in 1987, when the Australian Survey Office joined with the Division of National Mapping, which was formed in 1947. Another important component of AUSLIG was the provision of satellite imagery to industry and government, started by the Australian Landsat Station in 1979, renamed the Australian Centre for Remote Sensing (ACRES) in 1986.

In March 2015 DigitalGlobe announced the full availability of 30 cm satellite imagery products – an industry first. Access to the world’s highest resolution commercial satellite imagery captured by DigitalGlobe’s WorldView-3 satellite will improve decision making, enable more efficient operations, and enhance a variety of applications for customers in the civil government, defence and intelligence, energy, mining, and global development sectors.

On 15th December 2016 Earth-i was awarded the contract to supply the government of the state of Queensland, Australia with very high-resolution optical imagery of the entire state. The contract covers the supply of imagery from the DMC3 / TripleSat Constellation for each of the years 2016 and 2017 and will ensure that Queensland’s Department of Natural Resources and Mines (DNRM) has a detailed imagery database of the entire state, updated each year. The DMC3 / TripleSat constellation was ideally suited to this task because it offers the optimal mix of capabilities for wide area acquisition, very high resolution and high quality of imagery.

Earth-i was able to demonstrate to the DNRM that full State-wide coverage was now possible at less than 1m resolution. The 80cm pixel size data offered by Earth-i now enables new capabilities in a wide range of applications across all government departments while still meeting the requirement to collect 1.9million km2 of data in a three month period. Such capability offers new benefits and advantages for the Queensland government in mapping this large territory and managing its diverse environment and natural resources.