Dr Peter Caccetta is Team Leader of the Mapping and Monitoring Team.

Dr Peter Caccetta: improving environmental knowledge and management through use of remote sensing technologies

Dr Peter Caccetta leads the award winning Terrestrial Mapping and Monitoring research group within CSIRO Mathematics, Informatics and Statistics.

• 29 January 2010 | Updated 14 October 2011

• Current activities
• Background
• Academic qualifications
• Achievements

Current activities

Dr Peter Caccetta as Stream Leader, Terrestrial Mapping and Monitoring, is the leader of a multidisciplinary group of statisticians, mathematicians, engineers, computing scientists and photogrammetrists.

These researchers work with other domain experts to develop monitoring systems for natural resource management applications.

The group develop and use statistical and computational methods to integrate and analyse remotely sensed and other spatial data over time.

The Terrestrial Mapping and Monitoring research group contributes to:

• improved environmental knowledge and management at national, regional and local levels thorough the use of remotely sensed and other spatial data
• measures of sustainability and environmental performance for policy, industry and public information as reflected by the changes in the environment resulting from human as well as natural forces.

Background

Dr Caccetta first joined CSIRO in 1989 as an experimental scientist with a team developing remote sensing algorithms and methods for natural resource management.

After undertaking postgraduate research at the Curtin University of Technology, Perth, Western Australia, and working at the Western Australian Department of Land Administration, Dr Caccetta returned to CSIRO as a research scientist. 

Since 1999 he has led the collaborative research on the development of broad-scale terrestrial monitoring systems to inform natural resource management.

Academic qualifications

Dr Caccetta has been awarded a:

• Bachelor of Engineering with Honours from the University of Western Australia, Perth, Western Australia in 1989
• Doctor of Philosophy from Curtin University of Technology, Perth, in 1997.

Achievements

The Terrestrial Mapping and Monitoring team was awarded the 2004 CSIRO Chairman's Medal for developing technologies over a twenty-year period to help address key environmental issues such as salinity and soil degradation.

The Chairman's Medal honours both the expertise and contribution our scientists make to our nation and the international community. It celebrates their commitment and dedication to the service of science and the public good.

Using satellite images, digital elevation models and ground data, the team has developed technologies to transform large archives of data into information applicable to natural resource management.

The information generated is being used by farmers, environmental groups, industry  and government.

Their research efforts have put remote sensing 'on the map' as a key technology for addressing a range of national environmental issues.

Find out more about how CSIRO is Putting remote sensing on the map.