Why did the koala NOT cross the Road in Moreton Bay?

Team Name

Code for Change

Team Members

Project Description

Koala population is declining.

Habitat fragmentation impacts koalas as they spend more energy and time moving from one patch to another. In worse scenarios, there is no natural connection between tree patches, so koalas are pushed to cross busy avenues where they are at a high risk of being killed.

Because of this risk, cities in Australia like Brisbane and Moreton Bay are starting to implement “Fauna movement infrastructure”. In Moreton Bay, this infrastructure includes, for example, a ladder-style fauna rope bridge that connects protected bushland canopy habitat or a fauna rope bridge alongside signage and road stencils reconnecting canopy habitat.

Our project proposes a methodology to increase the locations for this fauna movement infrastructure for koalas. We will use citizen science, spatial data, and data science to determine the most suitable locations.

Data Story

The koalas' sights we obtained from:
Koala ALA - https://bie.ala.org.au/species/https://biodiversity.org.au/afd/taxa/e9d6fbbd-1505-4073-990a-dc66c930dad6
Koala MonitoringTheMill -
https://datahub.moretonbay.qld.gov.au/datasets/d2156616158447c19b5238826e153c81_0/explore

Additional recommended data sets to feed the model:

WildNet - better data quality of koala sights as submitted by licensed people and professionals (https://www.qld.gov.au/environment/plants-animals/species-information/wildnet) ;

WildNet database -which has information regarding wildlife, including koalas https://www.qld.gov.au/environment/plants-animals/species-information/wildnet

MBRC CNCCS Ecological Corridors - is a data set that shows ecological corridors in Moreton Bay, which can be indicative of possible paths for the koalas and koalas crossing infrastructure to feed the model - https://datahub.moretonbay.qld.gov.au/datasets/35aec93a8fb649efb5e95468db08a29d_0/explore?location=-27.202743%2C152.978775%2C12.57

Koala Hospital Data - data on the location of koalas found injured, causes of injury, or deaths. This data can be used to measure the effectiveness of current and future koala crossing infrastructure
https://www.data.qld.gov.au/dataset/koala-hospital-data

Queensland Roads - This data set can feed the model as a barrier for the koalas
https://www.data.qld.gov.au/dataset/queensland-roads-and-tracks