Ecological survey and monitoring software
An ecological survey is a set of nested records: a site holds transects and plots, each plot is visited on several survey events, and each event yields species observations with counts, behaviour and evidence. The client — a developer, an approval authority, an offset manager — reads a report that has to show survey effort met the guideline and that every record was carried into the conclusion.
The work in this discipline divides into three shapes. Baseline assessments (flora plots, fauna trapping, koala habitat, habitat trees) describe a site once against an assessment method. Repeat monitoring (offsets, revegetation, seagrass, nest boxes, threatened species) compares the same plots across seasons, so the report is a trend rather than a snapshot. Shift-based observation (spotter catchers, marine mammal observers, turtle patrols) is a log of events against an approval condition, written up daily. SurveyThanks holds sites, transects and plots as a register that every observation points at, captures in the field with no signal, and renders each shape into your own report template.
Enter your sites, transects and plots once
One observation can belong to several survey events and one species can span every plot on the site, so "all threatened species recorded in remnant vegetation" is a query against your own data rather than a re-read of last season’s report.
What goes in your reference library
- EPBC Act survey guidelines for threatened species
- State assessment methods (BAM in NSW, and state equivalents)
- Departmental threatened species survey guidelines
- Your own condition-assessment methodology and scoring rubric
- Approval conditions and offset management plans for the site
Reviewed before it leaves
Your own checklist and prose standards, run against the finished report — with findings graded info, minor or major, quoting the sentence at fault. Because the structured submission behind the report is held too, the review catches contradictions between the two: The report concludes no threatened species were recorded; the survey event on Transect 3 carries an observation that says otherwise.
20 report types in ecology
- Bat call monitoringBat activity reportWind developers
- Biodiversity offset monitoringOffset site reportOffset managers
- Bird utilisation surveysBird survey reportWind developers
- Camera trap programsCamera trap data reportResearchers
- Coral reef surveysReef health reportMarine parks
- Fauna spotter catcher logsSpotter catcher shift reportConstruction firms
- Fauna surveysFauna assessment reportEcologists
- Fish surveysFish assemblage reportFisheries scientists
- Flora surveysVegetation assessment reportEcologists
- Frog surveysFrog census reportEcologists
- Habitat tree assessmentsHabitat tree registerForesters
- Koala habitat assessmentsKoala habitat reportDevelopers
- Marine mammal observationsMMO shift reportOffshore contractors
- Nest box monitoringNest box occupancy reportCouncils
- Pre-clearance ecology surveysClearance survey reportCivil contractors
- Revegetation monitoringPlanting survival reportLandcare groups
- Seagrass monitoringSeagrass condition reportMarine scientists
- Shorebird countsShorebird census reportBird groups
- Threatened species monitoringSpecies monitoring reportGovernment agencies
- Turtle nesting patrolsNesting season reportConservation groups
Standards the report works to
- EPBC Act 1999Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 (Cth)
- Matters of national environmental significance, referral triggers and the approval conditions most monitoring reports answer to.
- BC Act 2016 (NSW)Biodiversity Conservation Act 2016
- Establishes the NSW Biodiversity Assessment Method and the offsets scheme that plot-based assessments in NSW are written against.
- BAM 2020Biodiversity Assessment Method (NSW)
- Prescribes the plot layout and vegetation integrity attributes a NSW flora assessment records.
- Commonwealth survey guidelinesSurvey guidelines for Australia’s threatened bats, birds, frogs, mammals, reptiles and fish
- The survey-effort benchmarks a report cites when it concludes a listed species is unlikely to be present.
Load the standards you hold into your reference library and the drafted prose is written against them rather than against a general model.
Questions
- Can one observation belong to more than one survey event?
- Yes. Observations are rows that reference a stored site, transect or plot, so a record can be reported under the event, the plot and the species without being entered three times.
- Does it work at remote sites with no reception?
- Field capture works offline: jobs, forms, photos, notes and audio are stored on the device and sent once the server confirms receipt. Rendering the report needs a connection.
- Can we keep our own species list and scoring method?
- Yes. Your firm builds the forms, option lists and calculated fields, and uploads its methodology documents to the standards library the report drafting draws on.
- Does the software identify species from photos or call recordings?
- No. Identification stays with the ecologist or your specialist analysis software. SurveyThanks records the result, the evidence and who made the call.
Other disciplines
Bring your ecology template
Your letterhead, your section order, your clause library — with the drafted prose landing where the template says it should.