Other national and international datasets
A large number of environmental datasets that inform wetland and riparian zone ecosystems exist for Australia across a range of scales and information on the is provided in the following links.
Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO)
Soil and Landscape Grid
The CSIRO Soil and Landscape Grid of Australia is the culmination of a collaborative effort to provide nationally consistent information on the Australian landscape and associated soils. It provides a range of national soil and landscapeattribute products. The landscape attribute products are generated at 3 arc seconds (~ 90 m) and have been derived from a smoothed version of the national 1 second resolution (~ 30 m) Digital Elevation Model (DEM; derived from 2000 Shuttle Radar Topographic Mission (SRTM) data). Layers of relevance include slope, plan and profile curvature, slope relief classification the topographic wetness and position indices . Several products are time variant (e.g., SRAD net radiation). The SLGA provides national soil attribute maps, with these being combinations of national 3D soil attribute maps and regional maps (Viscarra Rossel et al., 2015; Odgers et al., 2015). Soil attributes are estimated at depths intervals of 0-5 cm, 5-15cm, 15-30 cm, 30-60 cm, 60-100 cm and 100-200 cm. All maps are associated with a lower 5 % and upper 95 % confidence interval. Of note is that all products are time invariant and hence cannot be used for detecting or describing change.
Habitat Condition Assessment System (HCAS)
HCAS was developed by the CSIRO to quantify differences between a reference state and degraded ecosystem on the basis of a condition score (ranging from 0 to 1, with the latter representing the most intact state – i.e. most like the reference archetype). HCAS also considers that some ecosystems are constrained (often in the long term) by natural disturbance processes such as cyclones and therefore multiple ‘natural’ expressions of the reference ‘archetype; state can exist. In Australia, the characteristics of the intact state are often based on what is known about the pre-European vegetation, as many of the ecological legacies of these types still persist or can be reconstructed from recent historical knowledge. However, HCAS also considers the short to medium term temporal dynamics, which recognises that some ecosystems are constrained by natural processes such as cyclones, and recover without human intervention.
References
Viscarra Rossel, R., Chen, C., Grundy, M., Searle, R., Clifford, L., Campbell, P., 2015. The Australian three-dimensional soil grid: Australia's contribution to the GlobalSoilMap project. Soil Research. 53, 845-864. https://doi.org/10.1071/SR14366.
Odgers, N.P., McBratney, A.B., Minasny, B., Sun, W., Clifford, D., 2014b. DSMART: An algorithm to spatially disaggregate soil map units, in: Arrouays, D., McKenzie, N.J., Hempel, J.W., Richer de Forges, A., McBratney, A.B. (Eds.), GlobalSoilMap: Basis of the Global Spatial Soil Information System. Taylor & Francis, London, United Kingdom, pp. 261–266.
https://research.csiro.au/biodiversity-knowledge/projects/hcas/
Australian Bureau of Meteorology (BOM)
Climate Surfaces
BOM provides grids of averaged or analysed climate data, which are available as monthly or annual averages over several decades (typically from the 1960s and 1970s).
Australian Hydrological Geospatial Fabric (Geofabric)
Geofabric is a specialised Geographic Information System (GIS), that registers the spatial relationships between important hydrological features such as rivers, water bodies, aquifers and monitoring points. Enhancing understanding of Australia's water bodies connections is vital for effective management of our water resources.
Design Rainfalls
Design rainfalls are based on the statistical analysis of historical rainfall data to determine the design rainfall depth (mm) or design intensity (mm/hr) corresponding to selected durations and frequencies. Estimates are used in the design of infrastructure including gutters, roofs, culverts, stormwater drains, flood mitigation levees, retarding basins and dams. The new design rainfalls ensure that Australia is better equipped to manage flood risk.
Hydrologic Reference Stations (HRS)
HRS are high quality monitoring sites used for identifying long-term trends in streamflow variability, and predicting the effects of climate variability on long term changes in water availability across all Australian hydro-climatic regions.
Water Data Online
Water Data Online provides free online access to historical and current data from thousands of water monitoring stations across Australia to understand our water resources. Parameters include watercourse level and discharge, storage volume and level, electrical conductivity, temperature, turbidity and pH.
Groundwater information
The Groundwater information suite provides access to comprehensive, nationally consistent information on groundwater across Australia. Products include Australian Groundwater Insight, Australian Groundwater Explorer, Groundwater Dependent Ecosystems Atlas and National Groundwater Information System.
Climate Resilient Water Sources
Climate Resilient Water Sources provides a comprehensive national snapshot of the availability and use of recycled and desalinated water across Australia.
