Land Cover and Land Use

What's New

On 2 February 2017, Land Cover theme was renamed to Land Cover and Land Use to better reflect community requirements.

Overview

Theme sponsor

Intergovernmental Committee on Surveying and Mapping (ICSM)

Description

Land Cover is the observed biophysical cover on the Earth's surface including trees, shrubs, grasses, soils, exposed rocks and water bodies; as well as anthropogenic elements such as plantations, crops and built environments. Land Use refers to the ways in which land cover is used by humans (e.g. residential, industrial, commercial, agricultural, forestry, recreational).

On 2 February 2017, Land Cover theme was renamed to Land Cover and Land Use to better reflect community requirements.

Committees

ICSM

Standards

AS/NZS ISO 19115 - ANZLIC Metadata Profile Version 1.1 (implemented using ISO/TS 19139:2007, Geographic information – Metadata – XML schema implementation)
AS/NZS ISO 19131:2008 Geographic Information – Data product specifications
AS/NZS ISO 19144.1:2011 Geographic information - Classification systems - Classification system structure
ISO 19144-1:2009, Geographic information – Part 1: Classification system structure
ISO/FDIS 19144-2:2012, Geographic information - Classification systems - Part 2 : Land Cover Meta Language (LCML)
ISO/TC211 Geographic Information/Geomatics

Datasets

Australian Collaborative Land Use and Management Program (ACLUMP): Land use mapping provides nationally consistent land mapping at catchment and national level.
Dynamic Land Cover: This data provides nationally consistent land cover information at 250m resolution. It is essential for understanding and addressing a range of national challenges such as drought, salinity, water availability and ecosystem health.
National Forest Inventory (NFI) Forest of Australia: The NFI describes the extent and distribution of Australia's major forest types.
Fractional Ground Cover: This data is the fraction of an area that is covered by a specific cover type such as green or photosynthetic vegetation, non-photosynthetic vegetation (e.g. stubble, senescent herbage, leaf litter) or bare soil/rock. Fractional cover can be used to characterise the wind and water erosion risk, and in conjunction with appropriate ancillary data can be used to characterise soil carbon dynamics, grazing dynamics and stubble management practices.
National Vegetation Information System (NVIS): NVIS provides a nationally consistent vegetation dataset aggregated from jurisdictions. It provides a comprehensive means of describing and representing vegetation information based on establishing relationships between structural and floristic data.
National Topographic Data: This data contains elements that form key constraints in defining various land cover datasets and also provides data for mapping the built environment.

Theme profile

Description

Land cover and land use is the observed biophysical cover on the Earth's surface including trees, shrubs, grasses, soils, exposed rocks and water bodies, as well as anthropogenic elements such as plantations, crops and built environments. Land cover and land use changes for many reasons, including seasonal weather, severe weather events such as cyclones, floods and fires, and human activities such as mining, agriculture and urbanisation.

Datasets

National and Catchment Scale Land Use Datasets (ACLUMP): Mapping is conducted at two scales: national scale and catchment scale. Land use is mapped according to the nationally agreed Australian Land Use and Management (ALUM) Classification, a three-tier hierarchical structure.
Dynamic Land Cover: Nationally consistent and thematically comprehensive land cover reference for Australia
National Forest Inventory (Forest of Australia): Comprehensive, nationally consistent and regularly updated dataset describing the extent and distribution of Australia's major forest types
Fractional Ground Cover: National consistent fractional cover of Photosynthetic Vegetation (PV), Non-Photosynthetic Vegetation (NPV) and Bare Soil (BS).
National Vegetation Information System: Provides a comprehensive means of describing and representing vegetation information based on establishing relationships between structural and floristic data
National Topographic Data: Nationally consistent representation of natural and built environment features on the earth's surface for Australia excluding external territories.

Purpose

The purpose of the land cover and land use theme is to provide a nationally consistent series of land cover information to support decision making processes across all levels of government. Nationally consistent land cover and land use data will also provide key inputs for the academic and research communities.

Current status

In each jurisdiction, the land management or mapping agency creates and manages datasets representing the location of land cover information. This may be integrated from data held by land cover and land use authorities or derived from other sources, or interpreted from satellite or airborne imagery. There is currently no single vertical integration of all six land cover datasets, as listed, for a national coverage.

Future objectives

Provide a nationally consistent suite of land cover and land use datasets which support and deliver land cover and land use information. This will allow linking of location of these features across all themes.

Objectives:

Fully aggregate all jurisdictional data into a national dataset which provides a complete, consistent representation of the land cover and land use theme.
Establish governance structure between ANZLIC and existing supply chain (sponsor, custodian, aggregator and distributor)
Compliance to relevant ISO 19100 series, Australian and International spatial standards
Establish Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) Web Feature Service (WFS) for all datasets
Establish Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) Web Map Service (WMS) for all datasets
Engage Industry on validation of use cases for this dataset
Define additional datasets for land cover Water Observations from Space (WOfS) and National Carbon Accounting System

Standards

AS/NZS ISO 19115 - ANZLIC Metadata Profile Version 1.1 (implemented using ISO/TS 19139:2007, Geographic information – Metadata – XML schema implementation)
AS/NZS ISO 19131:2008 Geographic Information – Data product specifications
AS/NZS ISO 19144.1:2011 Geographic information - Classification systems - Classification system structure
ISO 19144-1:2009, Geographic information – Part 1: Classification system structure
ISO/FDIS 19144-2:2012, Geographic information - Classification systems - Part 2 : Land Cover Meta Language (LCML)
ISO/TC211 Geographic Information/Geomatics

Access and licensing

Products and services relating to this theme are distributed by the Geoscience Australia, Department of Agriculture, Department of Environment and CSIRO under Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Australia licence

Related websites

Coverage

Complete, current and continuous coverage of Australia excluding external territories.

Sponsor

Intergovernmental Committee on Surveying and Mapping (ICSM)

Key users

Federal, State and Territory Governments, industry and research communities

Version

1.0

Dataset profile

On this page:

Australian Collaborative Land Use and Management Program
Dynamic Land Cover
Forest of Australia
Fractional Ground Cover
National Vegetation Information System
National Topographic Data

Australian Collaborative Land Use and Management Program

Land Use Mapping (ALCUMP) © Australian Government

Description

Land use mapping in Australia is coordinated by the Australian Collaborative Land Use and Management Program (ACLUMP), a consortium of state and national agencies. Mapping is conducted at two scales: national scale and catchment scale. Land use is mapped according to the nationally agreed Australian Land Use and Management (ALUM) Classification, a three-tier hierarchical structure.

National scale land use mapping is produced by ABARES. The most recent is 2015-16 and 2010-11 at 250m resolution. National scale land use datasets have been compiled for 1992-93, 1993-94, 1996-97, 1998-99, 2000-01, 2001-02, 2005-06, and 2010-11 at 1 km resolution. The Land use of Australia data series uses authoritative spatial dataset to define non-agricultural land use and moderate (previously coarse) resolution imagery, ABS statistics and field sites to allocate agricultural land uses.
Catchment scale land use mapping is produced by the state and territory agencies using land tenure and other types of land use data, fine-scale satellite data and information collected in the field. The operational scale of catchment scale land use mapping varies according to the intensity of land-use activities and landscape context. Mapping ranges from fine scale (1:10 000 to 1:25 000) for irrigated and peri-urban areas to coarser scales for cropping regions (1:100 000) and for the semi-arid and arid pastoral zone (1:250 000). Catchment scale mapping is compiled into a national raster (50m) dataset by ABARES as new datasets are available from the jurisdictions (most recent Update December 2023 was released in February 20240.).

Purpose

The way the land use used has profound effects on Australia's social and ecological systems. There is a strong link between changes in land use, and environmental, economic and social conditions. Land use information can support decision-making by governments, land managers and the agricultural sector. Land use information can be critical to developing effective responses to natural resource priorities, including biodiversity protection, sustainable and productive agriculture, water quality and quantity, climate adaptation, and food security.

Land use mapping has been coordinated by the Australian Collaborative Land Use and Management Program (ACLUMP) since 2000. During this time, ACLUMP has developed nationally consistent land mapping at catchment and national scales.

Dataset Uses

Land use information is used for;

Developing and monitoring environmental and agricultural policy.

Drought policy – mitigating effects of future drought and relief based on the response of land cover to prevailing weather patterns
Food security – mapping crop coverage and areas of potential agricultural use
Biosecurity – planning for disease/pest response. To understand risk based on the ability of a disease or pest to move across landscape. To understand land cover change as a response to pests.
Contraction and expansion of agricultural lands
Protection of agricultural land by accurately mapping changes in agricultural land over time
Management of forests, rivers, fisheries, catchments and agriculture by recording land cover extent and changes
Managing reefs, floodplains and environmental degradation by recording land cover extent and changes
Planning investment priorities for agriculture and natural resources management through provision of baseline of land cover
Location and change in irrigation areas

Weather modelling, climate modelling, mitigation and adaption planning

Land Cover and Land Cover Change data is used for Greenhouse Gas Inventory Reporting obligations (UNFCCC & Kyoto Protocol) and climate change initiatives
Providing land cover information to report on international agreements
Reporting extent and conversion of 6 IPCC land categories – forest land, crop land, grass land, settlements, wetlands and other lands
Monitoring national inventories of forests, endangered species, fuel loads and carbon sinks
Estimating biomass for carbon accounting, native vegetation mapping and agriculture
Land cover data provides input for ecological and climate modelling
Land Cover data provides input to risk assessments for the built environment in relation to sea level rise and adaptation

Land and ecosystem accounting by providing consistent and timely accounts of land cover and land use, for example the State of the Environment Report (SoE), State of the Forests Report (SOFR) and System of Environmental-Economic Accounting (SEEA)

Providing base data sets for monitoring land use in the human managed land cover classes – including applications such as monitoring grassland, crop production and coverage, pasture extent, drought, biomass, land clearing, irrigation
Providing base data sets for mapping and monitoring land use, natural resources, water usage through vegetation response, groundwater dependent ecosystems, drought, evapotranspiration, biomass, groundwater dependent ecosystems, remnant vegetation, land degradation, native forest, plantation and forest extent
Providing land cover information to report on international agreements

Base line extents to allow for decisions regarding land use competition and regional planning

Statutory and non-statutory land use planning (including peri-urban developments)
Mining developments
Strategic agricultural lands planning
Impact from built environment development
Transport planning and infrastructure
Energy infrastructure planning
Water infrastructure planning
Communication infrastructure planning

CO2 infrastructure assessment planning

Current Status

The most recent national scale land use data available is for 2015-16. National scale land use datasets have been produced for 1992-93, 1993-94, 1996-97, 1998-99, 2000-01, 2001-02 and 2005-06 and 2010-11. A dataset for 2020-21 is currently in production by ABARES.

Catchment scale land use mapping was most recently updated December 2023 (re-released June 2024).

Future Status

Provide a nationally consistent land cover dataset which supports and delivers land cover information through the vertical and horizontal integration of the listed datasets. This will allow linking of location of these features across all themes.

Land use is an input into the National Land Account. Future national scale land use mapping will be dependent on funding.

Catchment scale land use mapping is conducted by state and territory agencies, some of which have dedicated land use mapping programs, others map on an ad-hoc basis. ABARES compiles a national mosaic of catchment scale datasets annually using the most up-to-date information from the jurisdictions.

Standards

National and catchment scale land use is mapped according to the Guidelines for land use mapping in Australia: principles, procedures and definitions, 4th edition and its Addendum, alongside Version 8 of the Australian Land Use and Management (ALUM) Classification. ALUM is the nationally agreed classification system for attributing land use information in Australia.

Access and Licensing

Products and Services relating to this dataset are made available under open access policy and guidelines. Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Australia licence Attribution Non Commerical

Coverage

Australia

Metadata

Metadata for all national scale land use datasets, state catchment scale land use datasets and the national compilation of catchment scale land use data are available at: https://www.agriculture.gov.au/abares/aclump/land-use/data-download

Custodian Agency and Contact

Department of Agriculture Fisheries and Forestry – ABARES

Formats

National scale land use data available as GeoTIFF – integer in either Albers or Geographic projection.

Individual catchment scale land use datasets for each jurisdiction available as vector datasets (either shapefiles or geodatabases).

Compiled catchment scale land use data for Australia available as an GeoTIFF in Albers projection.

Spatial web services are also in production.

Key Users

Federal, State and Territory Government Departments, industry and research communities.

Additional

Further information available at: http://www.agriculture.gov.au/abares/aclump/land-use/data-download

Dynamic Land Cover

Land Cover Map © Australian Government

Description

The Dynamic Land Cover Dataset is a nationally consistent and thematically comprehensive land cover reference for Australia. Dynamic Land Cover Dataset provides an 8 year synoptic overview of land cover at 250 metre resolution for the Australian continent between April 2000 and April 2008.

Purpose

The purpose of the Dynamic Land Cover Datasets is to provide nationally consistent land cover information at 250 metre resolution. It provides a base-line for reporting on change and trends in vegetation cover and extent. This information about land cover dynamics is essential to understanding and addressing a range of national challenges such as drought, salinity, water availability and ecosystem health.

Dataset Uses

Land cover information is used for

Developing and monitoring environmental and agricultural policy.

Drought policy – mitigating effects of future drought and relief based on the response of land cover to prevailing weather patterns
Food security – mapping crop coverage and areas of potential agricultural use
Biosecurity – planning for disease/pest response. To understand risk based on the ability of a disease or pest to move across landscape. To understand land cover change as a response to pests.
Contraction and expansion of agricultural lands
Protection of agricultural land by accurately mapping changes in agricultural land over time
Management of forests, rivers, fisheries, catchments and agriculture by recording land cover extent and changes
Managing reefs, floodplains and environmental degradation by recording land cover extent and changes
Planning investment priorities for agriculture and natural resources management through provision of baseline of land cover
Location and change in irrigation areas

Weather modelling, climate modelling, mitigation and adaption planning

Land Cover and Land Cover Change data is used for Greenhouse Gas Inventory Reporting obligations (UNFCCC & Kyoto Protocol) and climate change initiatives
Providing land cover information to report on international agreements
Reporting extent and conversion of 6 IPCC land categories – forest land, crop land, grass land, settlements, wetlands and other lands
Land cover data provides input for ecological and climate modelling
Land Cover data provides input to risk assessments for the built environment in relation to sea level rise and adaptation

Land and ecosystem accounting by providing consistent and timely accounts of land cover, for example the National Plan for Environmental Information (NPEI), State of the Forests Report (SOFR) and System of Environmental-Economic Accounting (SEEA) and the National Land Account (Australian Bureau of Statistics)

Providing base data sets for monitoring land use in the human managed land cover classes – including applications such as monitoring grassland, crop production and coverage, pasture extent, drought, biomass, land clearing, irrigation
Providing base data sets for mapping and monitoring land use, natural resources, water usage through vegetation response, groundwater dependent ecosystems, drought, evapotranspiration, biomass, groundwater dependent ecosystems, remnant vegetation, land degradation, native forest, plantation and forest extent
Providing land cover information to report on international agreements

Current Status

Dynamic Land Cover Dataset Version 1 (Version 1 provides a synopsis of land cover between 2000 and 2008 and includes trends in greenness between these two dates) was released in 2011. Dynamic Land Cover Dataset Version 2 beta captures the dominant land cover for every 2 year epoch from 2001 onwards. The beta product has been circulated to the user community for feedback and has been used to demonstrate how a consistent mapping product can be used to inform experimental land and environment accounts by the ABS and Bureau of Meteorology respectively.

Future Status

Current objectives

Version 2 of the Dynamic Land Cover Dataset is scheduled for release in 2014. Future generations of land cover maps generated by Geoscience Australia will focus on specific 25 metre land cover themes such as water, urban area, and cropping.

Long term objectives

Establish Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) standards compliant web services for all datasets
Engage Industry on validation of use cases for this dataset

Standards

The classification scheme used to describe land cover categories in the Dataset conforms to the 2007 International Standards Organisation (ISO) land cover standard (19144-2). The Dataset shows Australian land covers clustered into 34 ISO classes.

Access and Licensing

Products and Services relating to this dataset are made available under open access policy and guidelines. Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Australia licence By Attribution Non-Commercial.

Coverage

Complete, current and continuous coverage of Australia. The dataset presents a synopsis of land cover information for every 250m by 250m area of the country from April 2000 to April 2008. These reflect the structural character of vegetation, ranging from cultivated and managed land covers (crops and pastures) to natural land covers such as closed forest and open grasslands. In addition to the land cover map, the Dynamic Land Cover Dataset contains 3 layers that show the trend in annual greenness characteristics between 2000 and 2008. These trend layers highlight areas that are becoming greener or less green over time

Quantity

The dataset comprises digital files of the land cover classification, three trend datasets showing the change in behaviour of land cover across Australia for the period 2000 to 2008.

Metadata

http://www.ga.gov.au/products/servlet/controller?event=FILE_SELECTION&catno=71071

Custodian Agency and Contact

Geoscience Australia
landcover@ga.gov.au

Aggregator

Geoscience Australia

Distributor(s) and Products

Geoscience Australia: http://www.ga.gov.au/corporate_data/71071/Scene01-DLCDv1_Class.zip
Technical Report https://www.ga.gov.au/products/servlet/controller?event=GEOCAT_DETAILS&catno=71069

Formats

tiff
pdf
xml

Key Users

Federal, State and Territory Government Departments, industry and research communities.

Version

1.0 Draft for Consultation

Forest of Australia

Description

Forests of Australia is a national forest cover dataset produced by the National Forest Inventory (NFI) - an Australian Government, States and Territories cooperative project. The Forests of Australia dataset describes the extent and distribution of Australia's major forest types. The dataset uses NFI's definition of forest: "An area, incorporating all living and non-living components, that is dominated by trees having usually a single stem and a mature height or potentially mature height exceeding 2 metres and with existing or potential crown cover of overstorey strata to or greater than 20%"

The dataset is developed from datasets provided by relevant state and territory agencies and includes datasets from Australian government agencies and other sources to fill data gaps. Typically, the states and territories input datasets are based on data collected at from different a combination of different platforms, at different scales, using different methods, and of different ages – depending on the jurisdiction's priorities. Input datasets are usually a mix of vector and raster formats and a range of scales / resolutions: 1:25 000 to 1: 100 000 for vector and from 25m to 100m for rasters. The data are ground-truthed by the responsible agencies. The NFI uses ancillary data to verify and identify potential errors which then get referred back to the responsible agencies for validation.

State and territory agencies provide the NFI with appropriate look-up tables to enable classification into nationally consistent NFI forest cover classes. However, floristic information from the National Vegetation Information System (NVIS) is used may be used where data gaps exist.

The national Forest of Australia dataset is compiled as a raster of 100m resolution and includes both native and plantation forests. Six instances of the data have been published (1998, 2003, 2008, 2013, 2018 and 2023).

Purpose

The dataset is required by the Regional Forest Agreements (RFA) Act (2002) and the National Forest Policy Statement for:

Domestic reporting - produce Australia's State of the Forest Report (SoFR)
International reporting – Australia's contribution to the UNFAO Global Forest Resource Assessment
Policy advice

Dataset Uses

Domestic and international reporting
Policy advice
Forest productivity assessments
Forest wood / log availability and commerciality assessments
Monitoring forest cover and biodiversity
Monitoring effectiveness and impacts of relevant legislation e.g. RFA Act
Monitoring impacts of relevant policies e.g. Plantations Vision2020, Managed Investment Scheme (MIS)
Climate change assessments
Carbon accounting assessments

Current Status

The dataset is produced every 5 years, and each dataset is an independent snapshot. Six instances of the dataset exist 1998, 2003, 2008, 2013, 2018, and 2023.

Future Status

Standards

The NFI adopted the forest definition used by the National Forest Policy Statement (NFPS) (1992). The forest definition was developed by Australian, state and territory government representatives party to the NFPS and was agreed to by the NFI Steering Committee which has oversight of NFI's work.

NFI's definition of forest: "An area, incorporating all living and non-living components, that is dominated by trees having usually a single stem and a mature height or potentially mature height exceeding 2 metres and with existing or potential crown cover of overstorey strata to or greater than 20%".

Access and Licensing

Products and Services relating to this dataset are made available under open access policy and guidelines. Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Australia licence Attribution Non Commerical

Coverage

Complete, current and continuous coverage of Australia.

Quantity

State and territory data were accepted as provided and no further validation was required for the 1998, 2003 and 2008 versions of the dataset. A Multiple Lines of Evidence (MLE) approach, involving checking state and territory agencies data against independent datasets, was adopted to identify, validate and fix potential errors in the 2013, 2018 and 2023 datasets.

Metadata

https://doi.org/10.25814/rb7t-hv26

Custodian Agency and Contact

Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry – ABARES

Aggregator

Department of Agriculture – ABARES

Datasets are available for the following instances:

1998
2003
2008
2013
2018
2023

Formats

Raster (ArcInfo Grid)

Key Users

Federal, State and Territory Government Departments, industry and research communities.

Additional

Further information about Australia's forests is available here:
http://www.agriculture.gov.au/abares/forestsaustralia/Pages/default.aspx/

Version

1.0 Draft for Consultation

Fractional Ground Cover

Description

The data represent the fractional cover of Photosynthetic Vegetation (PV), Non-Photosynthetic Vegetation (NPV) and Bare Soil (BS).

Purpose

Fractional cover is the exposed proportion of PV, NPV or BS within each pixel. In forested canopies the photosynthetic or non-photosynthetic portions of trees may obscure those of the grass layer and/or bare soil

Dataset Uses

Nationally consistent and regularly updated ground cover information is critical for assessment of environmental targets related to soil erosion and land management in Australia.

Uses include assessments of;

erosion risk
change in resource conditions
carbon storage potential
agricultural sustainability and productivity
biodiversity
effect of management actions

Current Status

Fractional cover is currently available from the NCI at 500 metre spatial resolution for the period 2000 – 2013. The 500m product is now available as version 2.2 with version 3.0 to be released later in 2014.Data is available at https://remote-sensing.nci.org.au/u39/public/html/modis/fractionalcover-clw/

The funding for the maintenance of the 500m MODIS fractional cover product expired in July 2013, the dataset is now maintained on a best efforts basis by CSIRO Land and Water

Future Status

The TERN Fractional Cover algorithm developed by the Joint Remote Sensing Research Program has been applied to the national archive of Landsat data by Geoscience Australia and will be made available to the public via the National Computing Infrastructure in the 2014/15 financial year.

Long Term Objectives

Establish Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) standards compliant web services for all datasets Engage Industry on validation of use cases for this dataset
Engage Industry on validation of use cases for this dataset

Standards

Long Term Objectives

Establish Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) standards compliant web services for all datasets Engage Industry on validation of use cases for this dataset
Engage Industry on validation of use cases for this dataset
AS/NZS ISO 19115 - ANZLIC Metadata Profile Version 1.1 (implemented using ISO/TS 19139:2007, Geographic information – Metadata – XML schema implementation)
AS/NZS ISO 19131:2008 Geographic Information – Data product specifications
AS/NZS ISO 19144.1:2011 Geographic information - Classification systems - Classification system structure
ISO 19144-1:2009, Geographic information – Part 1: Classification system structure
ISO/FDIS 19144-2:2012, Geographic information - Classification systems - Part 2 : Land Cover Meta Language (LCML)
ISO/TC211 Geographic Information/Geomatics

Access and Licensing

Products and Services relating to this dataset are made available under open access policy and guidelines. Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Australia licence Attribution-Share Alike

Coverage

Complete, current and continuous coverage of Australia, February 2000 to December 2013 (continuously updated)

Quantity

The quality of the fractional cover product is dependent on the quality of the MODIS NBAR data, and subject to uncertainties and bias as described in Guerschman et al. (2009 and 2012). The phased production strategy of producing a 16-day composite every 8 days and the combination of the Terra and Aqua sensors in the MCD43A4 collection 5 enhances the chances of obtaining enough cloud-free data for each pixel in each date compared to the same data in collection 4. However, there are still areas with poor data availability, notably in the tropical areas during the monsoonal rains (November to April).

Metadata

A comprehensive metadata statement for this dataset is available at the following link;
http://www.auscover.org.au/geonetwork/srv/en/main.home?uuid=d478e7a1-9888-4942-a306-3c5015c3585a

Custodian Agency and Contact

CSIRO

Aggregator

National Computing Infrastructure and CSIRO

Distributor(s) and Products

National Computing Infrastructure and CSIRO

Formats

ENVI file format
Geotiff
NetCDF

Key Users

Federal, State and Territory Government Departments, industry and research communities.

Additional

Ground cover monitoring for Australia: Sampling strategy and selection of ground cover control sites

https://publications.csiro.au/rpr/pub?pid=csiro:EP13058

Australian Ground Cover Reference Sites Database – ABARES

Version

1.0 Draft for Consultation

National Vegetation Information System

Description

The NVIS framework was developed to enable the compilation of a nationally consistent vegetation dataset from data collected by states and territories. It provides a comprehensive means of describing and representing vegetation information based on establishing relationships between structural and floristic data. The NVIS Information Hierarchy is a system for describing the structural and floristic patterns of groups of plants in the landscape. Collectively, the different levels in the classification provide a description of vegetation that can be directly related to precise spatial areas as a vegetation map.

Purpose

The NVIS was developed to assist in managing a range of ecosystem services and practices such as biodiversity conservation, salinity control, improving water quality and fuel-load management.

NVIS information has been compiled to enable Australia-wide analyses of the Major Vegetation Groups (MVGs) and Major Vegetation Subgroups (MVSs), which are based on the detailed NVIS Level I-VI data.

Dataset Uses

Domestic and international reporting
Policy advice
Management of forests
Modelling habitat connectivity and fragmentation for biodiversity conservation planning
Providing base data sets for National Plan for Environmental Information environmental accounts
Providing base data sets for mapping and monitoring land use, natural resources, water usage

Current Status

The National Vegetation Information System (NVIS) is an ongoing collaborative initiative between the Australian and state and territory governments to manage national vegetation data to help improve vegetation planning and management within Australia.

The current release of the dataset is version 4.1, released in 2012. Major Vegetation Groups (MVGs) and Major Vegetation Subgroups (MVSs) raster products are available as raster 100m grids. A simplified vector product showing Major Vegetation Groups and Major Vegetation Subgroups extent comprises present ('extant') vegetation data covering Australia Wide is also available.

There is currently no single vertical integration of all seven land cover datasets, as listed, for the national coverage

Future Status

Provide a nationally consistent suite of land cover datasets which support and deliver land cover information. This will allow linking of location of these features across all themes.

Objectives

Establish Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) standards compliant web services for all datasets Engage Industry on validation of use cases for this dataset
Fully aggregate all jurisdictional data into a national dataset which provides a complete, consistent representation of the land cover theme.

Version 4.2 NVIS is currently being compiled.

Standards

Australian Vegetation Attribute Manual, Version 6.0
AS/NZS ISO 19115 - ANZLIC Metadata Profile Version 1.1 (implemented using ISO/TS 19139:2007, Geographic information – Metadata – XML schema implementation)
AS/NZS ISO 19131:2008 Geographic Information – Data product specifications
AS/NZS ISO 19144.1:2011 Geographic information - Classification systems - Classification system structure
ISO 19144-1:2009, Geographic information – Part 1: Classification system structure
ISO/FDIS 19144-2:2012, Geographic information - Classification systems - Part 2 : Land Cover Meta Language (LCML)
ISO/TC211 Geographic Information/Geomatics

Access and Licensing

Products and Services relating to this dataset are made available under open access policy and guidelines. Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Australia licence Attribution Non Commerical

Coverage

Complete, current and continuous coverage of Australia scale down through States and Territories to local government jurisdictions.

Quantity

All data is sourced from vegetation maps, except for some gap-filling in SA, NSW and ACT. The positional and attribute accuracy depends on the source data, which was collected at scales ranging from 1:25 000 to 1:5 000 000.

Metadata

http://www.environment.gov.au/topics/science-and-research/databases-and-maps/national-vegetation-information-system/data-product-0

Custodian Agency and Contact

Department of Environment

Aggregator

Department of Environment

Distributor(s) and Products

Department of Environment

Formats

Raster (ArcInfo Grid/ArcGIS File Geodatabase)
Vector (ArcGIS File Geodatabase)

Key Users

Federal, State and Territory Government Departments, industry and research communities.

Version

1.0 Draft for Consultation

National Topographic Data

Description

National Topographic data – principally referred to in this document as Geodata Topo 250K Series 3 – is a nationally consistent representation of natural and built environment features on the earth's surface for Australia excluding external territories. The data is thematically ordered and includes the following datasets containing up to 92 different feature classes:

Culture
Drainage
Elevation
Framework
Habitation
Transport
Utility
Vegetation

Purpose

The purpose of National Topographic data is to provide nationally consistent fundamental information depicting the natural and built environment. This information is used by Commonwealth, State & Territory governments as well as industry and the public to assist and inform decision making across a diverse range of activities including: emergency management, environmental monitoring, infrastructure development, urban planning, resource exploration, recreation and the establishment of legal boundaries and land ownership.

Dataset Uses

Topographic data depict the natural and built environments of the earth's surface and are a critical input for a range of uses:

Emergency management
Risk assessment
National defence and border protection
Infrastructure planning and protection
Navigation and route planning
Recreation
Education
Mineral and energy exploration
Environmental monitoring

With reference to Land Cover the topographic information depicting built environment data, such as built-up-areas, are used to support the classification of urban areas.

Current Status

Revised regularly up to 2006 as part of the 1:250,000 scale topographic mapping program from satellite imagery and information supplied by automobile associations, local government, tourist information and other volunteered information.

There is currently no single vertical integration of all seven land cover datasets, as listed, for the national coverage.

Future Status

Provide a nationally consistent suite of land cover datasets which support and deliver land cover information. This will allow linking of location of these features across all themes.

Objectives

Establish Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) standards compliant web services for all datasets Engage Industry on validation of use cases for this dataset
Fully aggregate all jurisdictional data into a national dataset which provides a complete, consistent representation of the land cover theme.

Standards

ISO 191* series, in particular AS/NZS ISO 19144.1:2011, ISO/FDIS19144-2 National topographic specifications - http://www.ga.gov.au/mapspecs/topographic/v6/index.html

Access and Licensing

Products and Services relating to this dataset are made available under open access policy and guidelines. Creative Commons Attribution 3.0

Coverage

Complete, current and continuous coverage of Australia excluding external Territories

Quantity

Geodata Topo 250K Series 3 is primarily sourced from Geodata Topo 250K Series 2 and 1:250 000 scale map reproduction material (from the National Topographic Map Series and Defence Joint Operation Graphics). A key revision source for the data is satellite imagery taken from the SPOT Panchromatic and LANDSAT Thematic Mapper Sensors.

Positional accuracy:

Horizontal accuracy: The summation of errors from all sources results in data with a standard deviation of 85 metres for well-defined features. As the data were digitised from existing map production material, some features may be subject to cartographic displacement.
Vertical Accuracy: Most spot heights have an accuracy of + or - 5 metres, however bench marks and horizontal control points have an accuracy of + or - 1 metre. The accuracy of contours is defined as 1/2 of the contour interval, for example + or - 25 metres for a 50 metre contour interval.
Attribute accuracy: The allowable error in attribute accuracy ranges from 0.5% to 5%, at a 99% confidence level. Where less than 1% of attribute errors are permissible the entire population is tested. Where a less stringent limit is set for allowable errors a random subset of the relevant features in the tile is generally tested. The sample size is determined from statistical tables using the known population size of the relevant feature.
Logical Consistency: Validating logical consistency may involve tests to check that table and file names are set out as in the Data Dictionary. Also included are graphical tests which check such things as intersections, polygon closure, minimum sizes of polygons and topological relationships. The allowable error in logical consistency ranges from 0% to 5%.
Completeness: All instances of a feature and its attribute values that appear on the source material are captured unless otherwise indicated in the criteria for that feature.

Further information can be found in Appendix J of the Topographic Data and Map Specifications

Metadata

Custodian Agency and Contact

Geoscience Australia; mapfeedback@ga.gov.au

Aggregator

Geoscience Australia

Distributor(s) and Products

Department of Environment

Formats

Tab MapInfo Native Format, MapInfo table file MapInfo Geographic GDA94
pGDB ESRI personal geodatabase Access Geographic GDA94
Shp ArcView shape file ArcView Geographic GDA94
KML Keyhole Markup Language (KML) Google Earth Geographic WGS84

Key Users

Federal, State and Territory Government Departments, industry and research communities.

Additional

http://www.ga.gov.au/topographic-mapping/theme-and-reference-maps.html

http://www.ga.gov.au/mapspecs/topographic/v6/index.html

Version

1.0 Draft for Consultation

Roadmap

Roadmap for Land Cover and Land Use

Purpose:

The roadmap outlines the development goals for the following three years, for all national foundation datasets within each theme. The goals are to be achieved in order to meet the defined end-state for the theme.

On 2 February 2017, Land Cover theme was renamed to Land Cover and Land Use to better reflect community requirements.

Owner:

Intergovernmental Committee on Surveying and Mapping (ICSM)

Click here for full version of the roadmap

Details:

Goals are owned by the theme sponsor to achieve within the FSDF governance framework
Goals are designated as funded/unfunded
The roadmap is approved by ANZLIC annually
The roadmap will be referenced as a benchmark in work plans and updates to ANZLIC
The roadmap is updated annually or on a major change as required

Notes:

1. The roadmaps (and goals) are agreed by ANZLIC and FSDF sponsors. An unfunded goal indicates that the sponsor is actively seeking to resolve the funding issue. Where this cannot be resolved the sponsor may elevate the issue for the attention of ANZLIC.

2. Dataset custodians are identified in the Dataset Profiles available on this website and their role in the delivery of the roadmaps is critical. State/Territory jurisdictions are also integral to the implementation of the roadmaps.

3. Engagement with custodians and/or jurisdictions in the FSDF and roadmaps is an ongoing process through 2015.

Click here for full version of the roadmap