Photopoint Monitoring

Taking a photograph of a site is one of the most basic monitoring techniques, and as the old saying goes, “a picture is worth a thousand words”.  However, at Aquatica Environmental we like to think that a great picture, taken as part of a well-designed photopoint monitoring program, is worth much more than just a thousand words.A photograph in itself cannot tell the entire story of a site, project or action.

Photopoint monitoring is not meant to replacer water quality monitoring, habitat/vegetation assessments or other waterway monitoring techniques.  However, a lot of data can be gathered from photographs taken from the same point over time. Photopoint monitoring, if undertaken correctly, provides an objective record of change and can reveal site or waterway changes that other measurements miss.  It can serve to demonstrate the temporal changes and effects of rehabilitation, land management and usage effects.

Photopoint monitoring provides an efficient and cost effective method for assessing change.  It can be easily and safely deployed as a stand-alone program, or incorporated into a broader program, for example river health monitoring with water quality, fish, macroinvertebrate and riparian monitoring.

Aquatica Environmental’s team has experience undertaking stand-alone photopoint monitorning programs and incorporating photopoint monitoring into existing and broader monitoring programs.  Our team has also developed photopoint monitoring guides for implementation into community waterway monitoring programs.

Examples of our site monitoring photographs can be found on the Gallery page.