Project: Flora and Fauna Monitoring Workshops for Environmental Managers

South Australian Research and Development Institute (SARDI) and Department of Primary Industries and Regions South Australia (PIRSA)

April 2021

South Australian Research and Development Institute (SARDI) is a state government agency providing world-leading research and development solutions.

Department of Primary Industries and Regions South Australia (PIRSA) is the state government’s key economic development organisation responsible for managing primary industries (such as agriculture, food, wine and forestry) and regional areas.

SARDI and PIRSA approached GUS to develop courses specifically tailored for their environmental managers. The courses comprised two parts: CASA-accredited Remote Pilot Licence (RePL) training and workshops on the application of drone technology in flora and fauna monitoring. These customised courses were conducted for personnel in Adelaide and Port Lincoln.

Topics covered include:

• What is a drone in the context of monitoring and evaluation?

• Ethics and Codes of Best Practice.

•  Types of drones and their operational niches, as well as discussions about “hype” vs “practical value”.

•  Designing drone configurations that optimise technology and survey metrics whilst working within regulatory constraints.

•  Integrating drones with other monitoring and evaluation tools.

•  Data processing and analysis. How to extract meaningful information from data collected by drones, including artificial intelligence.

•  Cost comparisons between drones and conventional approaches.

• Case studies and applications including terrestrial and marine ground cover assessment, vegetation condition monitoring and weed or species identification.

The opportunity to train personnel from SARDI and PIRSA came about from GUS’s ground-breaking work with another South Australian government agency, The Department for Environment and Water (DEW). You can read more about our collaboration with DEW to develop and implement drone programs in the management of South Australian marine parks here.