Copyright © Ramsar Monitoring 2022
This wetland monitoring platform is developed and maintained by the Centre for Ecosystem Science (CES), a research unit within the School of Biological, Earth & Environmental Sciences at UNSW Sydney.
The Centre brings together researchers across a broad range of expertise — terrestrial ecology, rivers and wetlands, waterbirds, biodiversity conservation and ecosystem restoration — working to understand and protect ecosystems in Australia and around the world. Its long-term monitoring programs include the Eastern Australian Waterbird Survey, which has run since 1983.
This site draws together global satellite indicators and regional survey data to support monitoring and reporting on the condition of Ramsar wetlands of international importance.
On the map, each wetland is coloured by the long-term trend in its condition. A non-parametric Mann-Kendall trend (Kendall’s τ) is calculated for every state indicator with at least 8 years of record — the wetland’s own water, vegetation and waterbirds. Climate drivers (rainfall, runoff, drought, temperature) are shown as context but never vote, so that a wetland being drained during a wet decade cannot be scored as improving. Each trend is direction-adjusted, then weighted by its statistical confidence (1 − p), so a noisy trend is pulled toward zero rather than counting as loudly as a real one; trends are then averaged by concept, so several ways of measuring surface water still count as “water” once. A site is improving or declining by the sign of that score. Where nothing is significant, we distinguish two very different situations: if the record was long enough to have detected a strong trend (judged on the longest record in each concept) and none is there, the site is stable; if it was not, we say not enough evidence rather than call it stable.
Delineated Ramsar polygons are based on Protected Planet, The World Database on Protected Areas (WDPA) and World Database on Other Effective Area-based Conservation Measures (WD-OECM)
www.protectedplanet.net
Precipitation: based on the Global Precipitation Measurement ( V6 (2000-2014) and V7 (2015 – present)) which is remotely sensed satellite data of rainfall. The metric provides estimated total annual rainfall within the Ramsar polygon as well as within the catchment area ( HydroBasin level 5 )
Drought and runoff : TerraClimate climate and climatic water balance for global terrestrial surfaces which is used to calculate the average annual Palmer Drought Severity Index and Runoff within the catchment area ( HydroBasin level 5 ).
Moisture and vegetation cover : Remotely sensed Sentinel-2 MSI data used to calculate Moisture Index (B8A - B11) /(B8A + B11) and a Vegetation Index (B8-B4)/(B8+B4) within the Ramsar polygon .
Surface water : remotely sensed distribution of surface water based on the Copernicus Programme which is used to calculate the maximum annual area of surface water as well as the annual monthly average. The trend that colours the map uses a third measure: the water area averaged over the months a satellite actually observed, so the denser Landsat record from 2013 does not read as more water. The maximum and the average are shown but do not vote.
Fire : total burned area each year within the Ramsar polygon, from two NASA products shown side by side. MODIS MCD64A1 (Terra and Aqua satellites, from 2001) sums the area of the 500 m cells whose burn date is uncertain by less than 20 days, and in a stricter series by less than 5 days. VIIRS VNP64A1 (Suomi NPP satellite, from 2013) sums the area of the 500 m cells whose burn date is uncertain by less than 20 days. The first year of each product covers only part of the year (MODIS 2000, VIIRS 2012), so it is not shown. Fire is context only: it does not decide the condition trend. Both satellite products are ending. NASA states that Suomi NPP data delivery stops on 1 November 2026 (the date may change), and that the Terra and Aqua satellites begin shutting down in late 2026 or early 2027.
DEA Wetlands Insight Tool : remotely sensed data combining both the Water Observations from Space and Fractional Cover summarising the relative annual area of water, green vegetation, dry vegetation and bare soil over time within the Ramsar polygon .
Geoscience Australia Water Observations : remotely sensed data of the Water Observations from Space summarising the maximum annual area of water within the Ramsar polygon .
Eastern Australian Waterbird Survey : aerial survey of waterbirds carried out since 1983 by the Centre for Ecosystem Science, UNSW. Metrics include total annual number of waterbirds and abundances of five functional response groups recorded along stratified 30-km survey bands which intersect with the Ramsar polygon .
Murray-Darling Targeted Survey : aerial survey of waterbirds carried out since 2007 at 38 important wetland and river sites in the Murray-Darling Basin.