Environmental Indicators and Impact Assessment Commons^™

Noogoora Burr And Its Control, Department Of Primary Industries And Regional Development, Western Australia

Biosecurity factsheets

Noogoora burr, also known as cocklebur (Xanthium strumarium), is a declared pest in Western Australia (WA). This factsheet describes the nature of the plant with links to requirements that land owners/occupiers must adhere to and control methods.

Native to western United States of America. Locally abundant in parts of the Kimberley, especially near water courses. Occasionally found in the South West region of WA.

Land Condition Standards For The Western Australian Nullarbor Pastoral Region, Peter-Jon A. Waddell, Wayne J. Fletcher

Natural resources published reports

This report outlines the quantitative land condition standards that define acceptable pastoral land condition for the Western Australian part of the Nullarbor, to meet the regulatory requirements of the Land Administration Act 1997 and the Soil and Land Conservation Act 1945.

The Department of Primary Industries and Regional Development is developing regional-level pastoral land condition standards for Western Australia as a critical component of the Framework for sustainable pastoral management – revised edition (Fletcher 2022), the purpose of which is to address the Office of the Auditor General’s recommendations to improve the management of pastoral lands in WA …

Long-Term Variability Of Air Quality And Greenhouse Gas Emissions From Rice Crop Burning In Punjab During 2012–2020, Harsimranjit Kaur Romana, Dericks Praise Shukla, Ramesh P. Singh

Mathematics, Physics, and Computer Science Faculty Articles and Research

Punjab, India's primary rice and wheat production hub, has witnessed rapid expansion of paddy cultivation over the past two decades, driven by minimum support price incentives, changes in government policies, alignment of sowing with the monsoon season and the adoption of high-yielding varieties. This transition has intensified groundwater extraction and shortened the fallow period between rabi and kharif crop seasons, reducing the window between rice harvesting and wheat sowing, leading to widespread open-field burning of rice residue and recurrent post-monsoon air-quality deterioration across the Indo-Gangetic Plain. Despite numerous short-term or single-pollutant assessments, a spatially resolved, multi-pollutant and multi-decadal evaluation linking …

To Hold Or Sell Breeding Cattle In The Rangelands, Department Of Primary Industries And Regional Development, Western Australia

Animal production and livestock factsheets

In a dry season where feed, water and finances are limited, removing less productive animals as soon as possible is a good option. This will free up feed for more productive animals and help preserve ground cover.

This page provides some of the information and a process for making decisions about holding or selling breeding cattle.

High Spatiotemporal Resolution Monitoring Of Crop Water Stress Across The Contiguous United States Using Harmonized Landsat And Sentinel-2 Data, Na Chen, Yanlei Feng, Na Wang, Jevan Yu, Mohammad Reza Alizadeh, Yifeng Cui, Ning Ye, Wenzhe Jiao, Joshua B. Fisher, César Terrer

Biology, Chemistry, and Environmental Sciences Faculty Articles and Research

Accurate and timely monitoring of crop water stress is essential for efficient agricultural water management, ultimately maintaining and improving crop productivity. While Landsat has been used for this purpose, its temporal resolution hampers timely detection of crop water stress. The recently released Harmonized Landsat and Sentinel-2 Version 2.0 dataset, which enables a higher-frequency time series of satellite observations (2–3 days, 30 m), offers a promising solution to this challenge. However, its potential for crop stress monitoring remained unexplored. In this study, we utilized 923 HLS satellite tiles to assess crop water stress across the contiguous United States (CONUS). Crop water …

Quantifying Single, Compound And Cascading Climate Extremes: Implications For Agricultural Resilience In California, Shahryar Fazli, Wenzhao Li, Rejoice Thomas, Surendra Maharjan, Mohammad Sina Jahangiri, Andre Daccache, Hesham Morgan, Mohamed Allali, Hesham El-Askary

Mathematics, Physics, and Computer Science Faculty Articles and Research

As climate change intensifies, extreme weather increasingly threatens California’s Central Valley (CV), a vital agricultural region exposed to rising risks from heatwaves (HW), droughts (DR), and compound extremes. These events disrupt crop productivity and broader processes like water demand, pest dynamics, and soil stability, posing systemic risks. This study examines the spatiotemporal dynamics of HW, coldwaves (CW), DR, excessive rainfall (ER), and their compound (e.g., HWDR) and cascading forms from 1951 to 2025, using NOAA nClimGrid-Daily data. We assessed trends in frequency, intensity, and duration over long-term (1951–2025) and mid-term (1981–2025) periods. Results show increasing HW and DR in the …

A Feature Engineering Technique For Enhancing The Generalization Of Machine Learning Models In Estimating Crop Evapotranspiration, Gaku Yokoyama, Sohta Harigai, Shigehiro Kubota, Koichi Nomura, Gregory R. Goldsmith, Daisuke Yasutake, Tomoyoshi Hirota, Masaharu Kitano

Biology, Chemistry, and Environmental Sciences Faculty Articles and Research

Accurate and precise estimation of evapotranspiration (ET) is crucial for understanding the terrestrial carbon, water, and energy cycles. While process-based models of ET, such as the Penman–Monteith model offer robust generalization capabilities, they are limited by the need for detailed parameters (e.g., stomatal conductance,) that are challenging to measure continuously. On the other hand, machine learning models can estimate ET by capturing relationships between ET and environmental variables without experimentally measuring model parameters. However, machine learning models face the challenge of limited generalizability. This issue is particularly significant given the uncertainty introduced by changing climatic …

Western Australian And South Australian Grain Enterprise Emission Intensities And Gross Margins: A Review, Christophe D'Abbadie, Ross Kingwell

Farm Systems and Economics research articles

Drawing on various datasets, crop enterprise emission intensities and gross margins are reported for the main broadacre crops grown in Western Australia and South Australia. Values are reported for various rainfall regions and across time, and for different farm performance groupings. As a generalisation, in each region, wheat and canola production display marked increases in emissions intensity across the study period whilst legume crops’ emission intensities increase far less. Wheat crops display upward emission intensity trajectories across time whilst displaying different rates of increase in emissions intensity according to regional rainfall. Canola demonstrates higher emissions intensities per tonne compared to …

Unraveling Crop Nitrogen-Water Dynamics With Hyperspectral-Thermal Sensing In Northern Central Valley, California, Shahryar Fazli, Surendra Maharjan, Wenzhao Li, Joshua B. Fisher, Rejoice Thomas, Fernando Romero Galvan, Gabriela Shirkey, Hesham El-Askary

Mathematics, Physics, and Computer Science Faculty Articles and Research

Ensuring global food security in the face of climate change requires optimizing crop water use and nutrient management. This study investigates the relationship between canopy nitrogen (N) and evapotranspiration (ET) across sunflower, rice, walnut, alfalfa, and plum crops using advanced remote sensing technologies. High-resolution hyperspectral data from NASAs Earth Surface Mineral Dust Source Investigation (EMIT) and thermal multispectral data from the Landsat-based OpenET system were analyzed over 1,135 km² in California. Regression analysis revealed strong spatial association between canopy N and ET for sunflower (R² = 0.82), rice (R² = 0.71), and walnut (R² = 0.68), …

Multi-Crop Systems And Crop-Switching Strategies To Enhance Water Use Efficiency And Climate Resilience In Arid Agricultural Regions, Shahryar Fazli, Wenzhao Li, Surendra Maharjan, Hesham El-Askary

Mathematics, Physics, and Computer Science Faculty Articles and Research

Agriculture in the Lower Colorado River (LCR) region faces mounting challenges from climate change, arid conditions, and water scarcity. This study evaluates water use efficiency (WUEc) and crop-switching strategies under SSP2-4.5 and SSP5-8.5 scenarios for 2025–2049, 2050–2074, and 2075–2099. Using historical data, climatic drivers such as temperature and precipitation were analyzed for their influence on key crops, including durum wheat, winter wheat, and corn. Results show SSP2-4.5 supports water use reductions up to 16%, stable profits (80–90%), and modest calorie increases (up to 15%), while SSP5-8.5 poses severe challenges, with water use reductions of 2–5%, profits dropping to around 20%, …

Adaptive Crop Switching For Irrigated Agriculture In Response To Climate Change In The Western U.S., Shahryar Fazli, Wenzhao Li, Surendra Maharjan, Rejoice Thomas, Aqil Tariq, Hesham El-Askary

Mathematics, Physics, and Computer Science Faculty Articles and Research

Adaptive irrigation strategies are crucial for balancing water use, economic viability, and food security in the arid Western United States. However, as a key indicator vital in regulating agricultural productivity and crop irrigation, water use efficiency (WUEc) is becoming increasingly complex to estimate due to climate change. This study explores the critical role of key meteorological drivers, such as maximum temperature (tmax) and vapor pressure deficit (vpd), and their impacts on crop-specific WUEc. Future impacts are also assessed through integrating machine learning models with climate projections from the CMIP6 framework under SSP2–4.5 and SSP5–8.5 scenarios to forecast WUEc trends from …

High Spatial Resolution Crop Type And Land Use Land Cover Classification Without Labels: A Framework Using Multi-Temporal Planetscope Images And Variational Bayesian Gaussian Mixture Model, Minh Tri Le

Mathematics, Physics, and Computer Science Faculty Articles and Research

Previous studies often combined high spatial resolution data (e.g., PlanetScope) with wider spectral range data (e.g., Sentinel-2) and relied on supervised classification methods to produce land use and land cover (LULC) maps. This study proposed a new unsupervised framework to generate crop type and LULC maps at high spatial resolution (< 5 m) using available PlanetScope data solely without requiring ground truths. We used PlanetScope surface reflectance images and their derived spectral indices during growing seasons to create multi-temporal input features, which were fed into an unsupervised Variational Bayesian Gaussian Mixture Model (VBGMM). The VBGMM, unlike the traditional unsupervised classification methods, (1) first estimated optimal parameters that are most suitable based on the input features and then (2) assigned pixels to the cluster with maximum posteriori probability of a mixture of several Gaussian distributions. The crop type and LULC maps were then generated by labeling the derived clusters using the best possible assignment method, referring to the existing crop type or LULC products. We evaluated the produced PlanetScope-based crop type and LULC maps using true labels, corresponding reference maps, and other unsupervised classification methods. The results demonstrated the robustness and effectiveness of the proposed framework in mapping crop types and LULC at 3–5 m pixels across various ecosystems, climate zones, and human-managed landscapes. The spatial patterns of PlanetScope-based maps were (1) highly comparable with all the reference datasets at 10–30 m spatial resolution and (2) better than the traditional GMM and K-means clustering methods. The VBGMM produced classification maps with high confidence, yielding class probabilities above 0.9 for over 90 % of all study areas. The area percentage for all crop type and LULC classes agreed well with their reference maps, with R2 of 0.95 and RMSE of 1.04 %. The confusion matrices using true labels indicated that PlanetScope-based maps achieved a higher overall accuracy of 84 % than the supervised referenced maps of 81 %. Besides, the entropy comparison showed that our framework-based maps were better at capturing fine-scale features such as developed areas within cities that commonly mix with open space and vegetation, deforestation and cropland conversion in South America, smallholder croplands in Africa and Asia, and generating homogeneous crop fields in North America. This study further highlighted the potential for future research to implement our proposed framework to generate timely and extensive annotated datasets, which can be used for operationally training machine learning models to map crop types and LULC, track deforestation, detect wildfires, and delineate flooded areas at larger scales using medium/coarse Earth observations.

Enhancing Water Scarcity Resilience In Egypt Through Machine Learning-Driven Phenological Crop Mapping And Water Use Efficiency Analysis, Surendra Maharjan, Wenzhao Li, Shahryar Fazli, Aqil Tariq, Rejoice Thomas, Cyril Rakovski, Hesham El-Askary

Mathematics, Physics, and Computer Science Faculty Articles and Research

Agriculture forms the backbone of Egypt’s economy, with the Nile Valley and Delta serving as key production zones for crops like wheat, rice, and clover. However, the sector faces mounting pressure from water scarcity, as it depends almost entirely on the Nile for irrigation, making it necessary to map major crops for assessing Water Use Efficiency (WUE) and informing agricultural planning. In this study, we used machine learning (ML) techniques—specifically Support Vector Machine (SVM) to time-series phenological data and optical indices (Enhanced Vegetation Index (EVI), Bare Soil Index (BSI), Land Surface Water Index (LSWI), Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI), and …

State And Transition Models For Mulga Rangelands Of Western Australia, Alison O'Donnell, Anna E. Richards, Suzanne Prober, Peter-Jon A. Waddell, Sarah Luxton, Ian Watson, Brett Abbott, Philip Thomas, Joshua E. Foster

Natural resources published reports

This report details a collaborative project between the Western Australian Department of Primary Industries and Regional Development and CSIRO that focused on developing State and Transition Models (STMs) for mulga rangelands in Western Australia. The overarching aim of the project was to improve the common understanding of the characteristics and dynamics of mulga rangeland ecosystems and the expected impacts of management. Specifically, the project aimed to collate expert knowledge and monitoring information using a nationally consistent framework to develop quantitative and dynamic STMs. The geographic scope of the project covers the extensive mulga rangelands of Western Australia, particularly the Gascoyne …

Pastoral Land Condition: Kimberley Land Condition Standards, Robert Sudmeyer, Rick Fletcher, Kathryn Ryan, Matthew Fletcher, Charles Martin, Philip Thomas, Karen Holmes, Karyn Reeves, Wayne Fletcher

Natural resources published reports

This report outlines the conceptual basis and quantitative land condition standards that define acceptable pastoral land condition for the Kimberley, Western Australia (WA), to meet the regulatory requirements of the Land Administration Act 1997 and the Soil and Land Conservation Act 1945.

The Department of Primary Industries and Regional Development (DPIRD) develops regional-level pastoral land condition standards for WA to implement the Framework for sustainable pastoral management – Revised edition, which is designed to address the Office of the Auditor General’s recommendations to improve the management of pastoral lands in WA. The application of these standards is expected to …

Modeling Wild Rice Bed Health: A Dual Metric Approach For Bed Strength And Invasive Impact, Seth Sisneros-Martinez

Journal of Earth and Life Science

Wild rice (mannoomin; Zizania palustris) is an aquatic grain that grows in slow-moving rivers and shallow bays throughout northern Minnesota. In Headquarters Bay on Leech Lake, wild rice has served as a cultural staple for Indigenous communities for centuries. However, its population has declined in recent years due to multiple environmental issues. One potential contributor is Eurasian watermilfoil (Myriophyllum spicatum; EWM), an invasive species that forms dense mats capable of outcompeting native aquatic vegetation, including wild rice. EWM was first recorded on the southern shoreline of Leech Lake in 2005 and has since become widespread. This study …

An Economic And Production Analysis Of Seaweed Farms In California And The Pacific Northwest, Brian Donovan

Cal Poly Humboldt theses and projects

Since the early 2010s, the seaweed aquaculture industry has steadily expanded in the United States, with states like Alaska, Maine, Hawaii, and Connecticut leading the way in the development of this emerging sector. However, information gaps remain concerning certain aspects of the domestic seaweed aquaculture industry. The purpose of this study was to examine the status of the seaweed aquaculture industry along the West Coast of the United States; specifically in the states of California, Oregon, and Washington. Seaweed farmers in these states were invited to voluntarily complete surveys asking important production, economic, and commercial questions regarding their operations. Data …

Multi-Sensor Data Fusion And Gis-Drastic Integration For Groundwater Vulnerability Assessment With Rainfall Consideration, Wu Jiazhe, Dai Xinrui, Su Yangcheng, Zheng Xiangtian, Bushra Ghaffar, Rabiya Nasir, Ahsan Jamil, Zeeshan Zafar, Mohammad Suhail Meer, M. Abdullah-Al-Wadud, Rahila Naseer, Hesham El-Askary

Mathematics, Physics, and Computer Science Faculty Articles and Research

In many areas of the world, particularly in arid and semi-arid regions, groundwater is the primary source of fresh water, and it supplies around one-third of the world's fresh water. Agriculture is the primary economic sector on the coast in the southern district (Nowshera). More food productivity is required due to the expanding population and diminishing agricultural lands, which increases the use of chemical pesticides and fertilizers in farming. The current study was conducted in northwestern parts of Pakistan to evaluate the impacts of the frequent use of pesticides and fertilizers in agricultural fields. Nine hydrogeological parameters were considered, and …

Identifying Opportunities For Nature-Based Solutions With Geospatialized Life Cycle Assessments And Fine-Scale Socioecological Data, Gabriela Shirkey, Annick Anctil, Ranjeet John, Venkatesh Kolluru, Leah Mungai, Herve Kashongwe, Lauren T. Cooper, Ilke Celik, Joshua B. Fisher, Jiquan Chen

Biology, Chemistry, and Environmental Sciences Faculty Articles and Research

As we increasingly understand the impact that land management intensification has on local and global climate, the call for nature-based solutions (NbS) in agroecosystems has expanded. Moreover, the pressing need to determine when and where NbS should be used raises challenges to socioecological data integration as we overcome spatiotemporal resolutions. Natural and working lands is an effort promoting NbS, particularly emissions reduction and carbon stock maintenance in forests. To overcome the spatiotemporal limitation, we integrated life cycle assessments (LCA), an ecological carbon stock model, and a land cover land use change model to synthesize rates of global warming potential (GWP) …

Guiding Wildlife: Evaluating Wildlife Exit Designs And Sensor Lights For Safer Highways In South Texas, Rupesh Maharjan

Theses and Dissertations

Roadside exclusionary fencing is more prevalent on highways to prevent wildlife-vehicle collisions. Although it can mitigate wildlife road mortality by limiting their access to the road, it can also create a barrier for wildlife stranded within the right-of-way. In State Highway 100 of Texas, the Texas Department of Transportation installed ten wildlife exits to allow wildlife to escape the fenced roadway, and a pair of sensor lights on 13 wildlife guards (WGs) to scare off target species (bobcats and coyotes) from crossing the guards and accessing the roadway. In this study, the effectiveness of three wildlife exit (WE) designs were …

Leveraging High-Frequency Water Quality Data And Machine Learning For Monitoring Harmful Algal Blooms, Ibrahim Busari

All Dissertations

Freshwater management is one of the most critical resources on the earth due to the plethora of water use and its limited availability. Increased algae proliferation is one of the significant problems of freshwater bodies that is triggered by nutrient enrichment and enabling conditions such as light and warm temperatures. This algal proliferation is toxic to the ecosystem through their biomass and potential toxin production that can cause hypoxic conditions and is often referred to as Harmful Algal Blooms (HABs). Current monitoring approaches include laboratory analysis of water samples to observe algal cells, monitoring of water quality parameters using water …

Evaporation Basins For Salinity Management, Department Of Primary Industries And Regional Development, Western Australia

Natural resources factsheets

An evaporation basin is an engineered earth structure designed to safely store and evaporate saline water discharged from drainage or pumping, while protecting high-value agricultural land, natural assets or built infrastructure.

DPIRD recommends that evaporation basins should form part of an integrated water and salinity management program. Information on this page is a guide only.

It is recommended that landholders seek expert advice plus engineering design and related support from qualified contractors.

Rabbit Control: Bait Products, Department Of Primary Industries And Regional Development, Western Australia

Biosecurity factsheets

This factsheet is part of the bait and poison directory for vertebrate pests in Western Australia (WA). It provides information on bait, poison, and toxin (bait) products available for use in WA to control rabbits (Oryctolagus cuniculus).

For information on how to access bait, poison and toxin (bait) products, training required, animal welfare considerations and legal requirements, refer to the Bait and poison directory for vertebrate pests’ page on the website at dpird.wa.gov.au. Information on bait, poison, and toxin (bait) products available for use in WA for rabbits, is provided below.

Managing Salinity: Fence And Volunteer Pasture, Department Of Primary Industries And Regional Development, Western Australia

Natural resources factsheets

This treatment is recommended for saline sites that can support a mix of salt tolerant species and some non-tolerant pasture species, where livestock are present. It may also be the preferred solution for farmers who wish to see an improvement in their land at low cost.

The department recommends that any dryland salinity management is part of a whole farm, and preferably a whole catchment, water management plan.

Cane Toad, Department Of Primary Industries And Regional Development, Western Australia

Biosecurity factsheets

This factsheet provides information about the identification, biology, impact, and management of the cane toad.

The cane toad (Rhinella marina), or giant toad, is native to central and South America. It has been introduced to many countries, including northern and eastern Australia. The cane toad is a declared pest under the Biosecurity and Agriculture Management Act 2007 (BAM Act) in Western Australia (WA). The Western Australian Organism List (WAOL), available on the website at dpird.wa.gov.au) contains information on the area(s) in which this pest is declared, and the control and keeping categories to which it has been assigned in WA.

Measuring Soil Salinity, Department Of Primary Industries And Regional Development, Western Australia

Natural resources factsheets

To make sound decisions on managing saline sites, you need to know the source of salt, how salinisation is occurring, the landscape context, and most importantly, the actual salt concentration of the soil.

The most common 'measures' of salt concentration are actually estimates based on electrical conductivity of a soil and water solution. Soil salt content can be measured in a laboratory by measuring the total dissolved solids in a sample. In the field, salt concentration can also be estimated using electromagnetic induction-based soil sensors.

Fallow And Red Deer: Requirements To Keep, Department Of Primary Industries And Regional Development, Western Australia

Animal production and livestock factsheets

This factsheet provides information on the requirements for keeping fallow and red deer species in Western Australia.

Fallow (Dama dama) and red deer (Cervus elaphus) are declared pests under the Biosecurity and Agriculture Management (BAM) Act 2007 in Western Australia (WA).

The department assists in preventing the establishment of deer in the wild. This means a permit is required to keep fallow and red deer in WA. Animals that escape or become feral must be recaptured or destroyed.

Small populations of feral deer occur in WA from escaped captive stock and deliberate release. Deer damage native plants, crops and plantation …

Roaded Catchments In Wa, Department Of Primary Industries And Regional Development, Western Australia

Natural resources factsheets

Roaded catchments are earthwork structures designed to increase the amount of run-off from the catchment above a receiving farm dam.

Roaded catchments are lined with clay and compacted to make a smooth surface that reduces infiltration and increases run-off. Roaded catchments should discharge into a silt trap and then into a dam (excavated earth tank). This combined structure should be fenced to exclude livestock.

The Department of Primary Industries and Regional Development recommends that roaded catchments are part of an integrated water and salinity management program.

The information in this page is only a guide – seek expert advice before …

Greenhouse Gas Accounting For Western Australian Agriculture 2022, Johnny Machon, Mandy Curnow, Christophe D'Abbadie

Climate Science Published Reports

This report presents new modelling of the greenhouse gas emissions attributable to Western Australia’s agricultural industries and provides an overview of sequestration at the state level. The report improves and expands on the estimates from previous technical reports by the Department of Primary Industries and Regional Development (DPIRD), most notably Curnow et al. (2022). The report presents a new, much broader picture, capturing not only emissions from agricultural activities in Western Australia (WA), but also the emissions associated with the production of agricultural inputs and the sequestration that occurs on agriculturally managed lands. This broader picture of emissions aligns with …

Rabbit Fencing To Protect Crops And Pastures, Department Of Primary Industries And Regional Development, Western Australia

Biosecurity factsheets

This factsheet outlines the use of fencing to protect crops and pasture from rabbits.

Rabbits cause an estimated loss of $217 million each year to Australian agricultural production and cause significant environmental damage. In Western Australia (WA), areas of native vegetation, particularly on sandy ridges that would otherwise be subject to wind erosion, have been retained on farms. Bush remnants are a major refuge habitat for rabbits, which can cause considerable damage to nearby pastures and crops. A measure of rabbit control can be achieved by poisoning around bush remnants in late summer or autumn, prior to seeding. To be …