Project BatWise

Team Name

BatWise

Team Members

Project Description

Australia hosts diverse flying fox species, including three on the Sunshine Coast: The Little Red Flying Fox, The Black Flying Fox, and the endangered Grey-Headed Flying Fox. Flying Foxes are a keystone species for many Australian Natives, being responsible for the pollination and seed dispersal for over 600 species. The Sunshine Coast contains over 40 roosts which maintain our ecosystems and support sustainability however, the increase of habitat fragmentation due to urbanisation has resulted in cases of human wildlife conflict in roost locations.

BatWise is an interactive platform, drawing inspiration from the'Dial before you Dig' concept, BatWise Provides an interactive map which highlights flying fox protection areas on the Sunshine Coast. Accessible to residents, developers, and the council, the app features urbanization policies and community engagement through reporting and benefits.

Data Story

We utilised data sets from the Sunshine Coast Council, Morten Bay Regional Council, and the Q Spatial Data hubs. These data sets were imported as shapefiles into QGIS and cleaned up using the validity tool. The data was then exported as a csv file and manipulated in excel to determine a criticality rating for each recorded flying fox location. The criticality rating was derived from a multitude of variables including the species type and whether or not they are endangered, present young, total population, and regional ecosystem type. We then used QGIS to spatially join criticality data and property boundary cadastre to develop a prototype of the BatWise interactive map. A demo of the BatWise app which includes the interactive map and other feature tabs such as data space, education and further resources was also created.