Located across the Greater Brisbane Region, the Landsat images time-lapsed in Ground Truth – Fire, Flood and Human Endeavour are shown as sets of true and false colour. Encompassing part of Moreton Island, North Stradbroke Island and Moreton Bay in the East, to the D’Aguilar National Park and Wivenhoe Dam in the West, this imagery shows the most populated area of Queensland.
Urban expansion of the outer Brisbane regions can be observed through time and natural events such as flooding through the city and the occasional bushfire in the National Park may be observed.
Date captured: 01/07/1990
This true colour Landsat image shows the Greater Brisbane Region in 1990.
False colour – bands 5 (shortwave infrared), 4 (near infrared), 2 (visible green)
True colour – bands 3 (visible red) 2 (visible green), 1 (visible blue)
Date captured: 16/01/2011
This true colour Landsat image was captured on 16 January 2011, a few days after the flood peak in Brisbane. The image shows sediment-laden floodwaters of the Brisbane River flowing through to Moreton Bay. The muddy waters are tan coloured, strongly contrasting with the less turbid blue and green waters of other areas of Moreton Bay.
Date captured: 24/07/2016
This true colour Landsat image shows the Greater Brisbane Region in 2016.
Moving through the satellite imagery from the 1980s to the present, one can see the impact of population growth in south-east Queensland by the high levels of urban development.
Much of this has come from clearing native bushland and from land use moving from agriculture to suburbs. In this photo you can see, rapid growth has occurred in development corridors south of Brisbane in Logan and the Gold Coast, south-west of Brisbane at Redbank Plains, Springfield, Flagstone and Ripley, north of Brisbane around Mango Hill and on the Sunshine Coast at Caloundra and Maroochy. Canal estates emerge in the both the Gold and Sunshine Coast image sequences.
See the whole story
Visit one of our upcoming Ground Truth – Fire, Flood and Human Endeavour exhibitions to immersere yourself in 30 years of changes to the Greater Brisbane Region.
The Ground Truth immersive media exhibitions bring to life satellite imagery of the Greater Brisbane Region, the Channel Country and Cape York to show us how humans and nature are changing the environment we live in.
Step forwards and backwards through time and sound for an interactive journey through some of Queensland’s most cyclical and rapidly changing landscapes.
