Harnessing the power of people - phone apps for national weed surveillance

Abstract

Smart phone and tablet technologies have taken the world by storm. These tools are now available to all demographics and it is predicted that 87 percent of Australians will own a smart phone by 2015. The power and accessibility of this technology provides an unprecedented opportunity to access new audiences and improve two-way information flow. This includes the potential for in-field plant identification and mapping systems which can be deployed to tens of thousands of users. The University of Queensland’s QAAFI Biological Information Technology (QBIT) group has developed an easy to use identification tool covering all Australian declared plants and a large proportion of Queensland’s non-declared environmental weeds. Currently in prototype form, the Weed Detector mobile app is based on the Lucid plant identification platform and has the capacity to guide users through the identification of plant species, collect GPS and photographic information and link to state and national weed mapping systems. The app is supported by detailed diagnostic photographs and more than 2,000 weed information sheets which are fully integrated into the tool so it can be used in areas where there is no internet access. This paper discusses the potential of this and other mobile technologies to revolutionise the way we look at weed surveillance… ensuring that weeds really do become everyone’s business.