New drone technology has been developed to try to get a more accurate picture of how many waterbirds there are in the Murray Darling Basin.
The Murray Darling Basin Authority is working with other agencies including Adelaide University to come up with a tool that looks at pictures collected by drones for the counts.
The authority says bird populations are a key indicator of the Basin’s health.
There are over one-hundred and twenty species of birds living across the Basin in wetlands, lakes and on the floodplains.
In a recently completed trial of the tool, a count of Straw-Necked Ibis in a South Australian location found the new method to be more than 90-per-cent accurate.
The software code has been shared freely on the MDBA’s GitHub page so researchers and other organisations can use the technology for their own purposes, with or without waterbirds.
The project was funded through the Murray–Darling Water and Environment Research Program.
Image: Thomas Ehrhardt on Pixabay
