Australian Natural Resources Information 2002
National Land and Water Resources Audit, 2002
ISBN: 0 642 37131 8
Managing Our Investment
Australia invests hundreds of millions of dollars each year in data collection and monitoring to inform decision making. Investment is made through Commonwealth, State, Territory and industry activities. For water alone, the Audit has identified monitoring and data collection programs with a total cost more than $185 million each year (Atech 2000).
A more efficient use of this investment in data is essential if we are to better inform and prioritise natural resource decisions.
However, data issues still arise:
- considerable amounts of data are hidden or possibly lost;
- much of the data are not documented and even less data has documentation available to the community; and
- even less data are easily available in a form that allows it to be integrated with other data to support natural resource assessments.
Long-term systematic management of our investment in natural resources data minimises the costs of finding, remediating or re-collecting data, and maximises the opportunities to apply the data to decision making and natural resource management. Resources freed by good data management may then be used to fill critical gaps in our knowledge of our natural resources.
Monitoring our natural resources requires effective coordination and partnerships
This chapter identifies those actions required to manage the investment in natural resources data and information services developed by the Audit and its partners. Issues discussed and the recommendations identified are designed to complement those in the recently launched Spatial Information Industry Action Agenda (Commonwealth of Australia 2001b), and the Commonwealth Policy on Spatial Data Access and Pricing (Commonwealth of Australia 2001a).
In particular, the Spatial Information Industry Action Agenda addresses private sector involvement in the development of the data infrastructure, and issues of education and training required to improve the capacity to use spatial information systems. The Commonwealth Policy on Spatial Data Access and Pricing outlines actions required to build on the success achieved by the Audit to negotiate a single, generic, multilateral agreement with States and Territories through ANZLIC - the Spatial Information Council to enhance access to spatial data.
Building the natural resource spatial data infrastructure
The Audit and its partners have shown that there are substantial benefits in a coordinated approach to providing and managing information across Australia. Yet, lessons from the past suggest that there needs to be a strong and explicit commitment to maintain the systems, data and partnerships that have been developed over the past four years.
Through ANZLIC - the Spatial Information Council, all jurisdictions have agreed on a set of national principles to improve coordination and develop a national spatial data infrastructure (ANZLIC 1999). It is essential that these principles be implemented.
National principles for spatial data management
- Data must be developed and maintained to meet agreed international or national guidelines or standards for the management of spatial information as endorsed by ANZLIC - the Spatial Information Council or through national coordination arrangements. This will ensure the data are comparable and consistent where required.
- Data must be documented in the Australian Spatial Data Directory. Documentation must be current and provide enough information for users to determine whether they are suitable for their purpose. This will ensure that users can easily find out whether suitable data already exist.
- Data must be easily accessible to all sectors of the community in format, location, cost and under conditions that do not inhibit their use. This will ensure that users can obtain the data.
- Data must be accompanied by a licence when transferred, clearly setting out the conditions under which they may be used, the rights and responsibilities of the data provider, and the rights and responsibilities of the data receiver. Licence arrangements are required to ensure that the data are accessible, while protecting copyright, intellectual property, privacy and confidentiality. The rights of the individual and governments in relation to confidentiality, privacy, security and intellectual property must be preserved. This will ensure that the rights of all parties are protected and understood.
- Before funding data collection, organisations and jurisdictions should actively identify and exploit the many existing opportunities for cooperation and sharing of fundamental spatial data to avoid duplication and maximise benefits of investment in data collection.
Coordinating the development of Australia-wide data to support natural resource decision making
While the principles for developing an Australia-wide spatial data infrastructure have been agreed by all jurisdictions and may appear simple, they are not always being implemented.
The Spatial Information Industry Action Agenda (Commonwealth of Australia 2001b) notes that poor coordination of public data collection between public sector agencies has led to:
- different agencies collecting essentially the same data, either because existing data have not been collected to the required standards or because they are unaware of each other's activities; and
- different agencies using similar technologies to collect different data in the same area, when, with better coordination, a single data collection exercise could collect both sets of data.
The Commonwealth has spent over $20 million for mapping vegetation in past seven years through Commonwealth - State partnership programs including the Regional Forest Agreements, Bushcare, the National Forest Inventory, Save the Bush and the Cape York Peninsula Land Use Study. Despite this significant investment, the Audit assessment of native vegetation (NLWRA 2001e) found that it was difficult to find, standardise and integrate the data to support a national assessment of native vegetation resources. Most of these data are not documented in the Australian Spatial Data Directory, and programs often used different methods to collect the data, define attributes and generate maps.
National coordination
There are many agencies at all levels of government that can supply local, regional or Australia-wide data to help build a national picture.
When undertaking the Audit assessments, the best quality and most accessible Australia-wide data included climate, geology, agricultural statistics, and topography (roads, rivers and elevation) data. These sets of data had been developed through long-term Commonwealth and State/Territory programs, applying agreed standards to develop products that were consistent across Australia.
To date, most Commonwealth funding for data about vegetation, soil, water and land resources has been through short-term projects. The data generated by short-term and regional programs is potentially useful in the construction of Australia-wide data to support natural resource management activities. However with many custodians involved, it is essential to enhance coordination and funding arrangements so that the components of the national picture are compatible.
Mor effective national coordination is needed to establish strategic data collection priorities, avoid duplication and provide long-term certainty for data collection and management. Strong coordination arrangements are required with leadership and incentives to ensure that efficiencies are achieved.
Consultative and coordinated approaches to data acquisition and determination of priorities will ensure that data enjoy the widest use.
Australia is wasting valuable intellectual and capital resources because of the multitude of uncoordinated data collection and management programs. This situation is not sustainable either from a public policy or investment perspective.
To efficiently build Australia-wide data, national coordination arrangements are needed that:
- Provide leadership in developing standards and procedures for data collection, maintenance and transfer.
- Support the activities of custodians to ensure that data are collected, maintained and delivered in conformance with standards and specifications, with minimum duplication of effort.
- Maintain active consultation across agencies, industry and users of data to identify their priorities and information needs. Regular review of client needs is important to ensure that information services remain relevant.
- Draw together the interests of data custodians and matching these interests to the needs of users.
- Focus on how the activities and lessons from one jurisdiction can be applied in other jurisdictions to minimise 'reinventing the wheel'.
- Expeditiously assess all relevant spatial data collection projects before they commence to minimise duplication and ensuring that data products will be compatible with the spatial data infrastructure.
- Develop and implement programs with custodians and funding agencies (within resource constraints) to update the data to improve monitoring of Australia's natural resources—update programs should reflect the needs of decision makers, and the scales and time frames within which decisions are made.
Government funding of data at all levels of government must encourage consistency, integration and ongoing development of Australia's data infrastructure. Data collections and ongoing monitoring projects, whether large or small, and irrespective of scale, should be managed in accordance with the national data management framework. The Commonwealth can show leadership through better coordinating its own natural resource data collections.
Recommendations
Maximum value for money
To maximise investment in data collection and the provision of information at a range of scales, it is recommended that the Natural Heritage Ministerial Board, through the Natural Resource Management Ministerial Council, ensure that Commonwealth, State and Territory agencies use standard conditions in contracts and agreements when collecting natural resource data. Conditions should seek to improve the availability of consistent natural resource data to government, industry and the community. The conditions should ensure that:
- data are made available to the community within time frames and forms that maximise their use;
- data are collated and made available using nationally agreed standards and guidelines for the Australian Spatial Data Infrastructure as endorsed by ANZLIC - the Spatial Information Council;
- spatial data are fully documented in the Australian Spatial Data Directory;
- data are available through a single licence agreement, such as the agreement developed between the Audit and ANZLIC - the Spatial Information Council and supported by Commonwealth, States and Territories; and
- there are no limitations on the use of natural resource data funded through these projects.
Commonwealth, State and Territory agencies should be encouraged to adopt these conditions for all spatial data.
Progress reports
It is recommended that the Natural Heritage Ministerial Board, through the Natural Resource Management Ministerial Council, requests that ANZLIC - the Spatial Information Council provide yearly reports on the status of the natural resource spatial data infrastructure to the Natural Resource Management Ministerial Council detailing progress on key activities to:
ensure that users can find out whether suitable natural resources data exist by:
- reviewing the Australian Spatial Data Directory and measure trends in the quality and availability of information about natural resource data; and
- recommending actions for consideration by the Natural Resource Management Ministerial Council to improve the quality and availability of information about natural resource data (metadata).
ensure that government, industry and the community can easily obtain natural resources data by:
- reviewing the availability of natural resource data from government to the community and identify important natural resource data that are in a format or location, at a cost, or under licence conditions that inhibit their use; and
- recommending actions for consideration by the Natural Resource Management Ministerial Council to improve the availability of natural resource data.
ensure that natural resource data are comparable and consistent, where required by:
- providing detailed audits on the progress of fundamental Australia-wide sets of natural resource data in meeting guidelines developed for the Australian Spatial Data Infrastructure; and
- recommending actions for consideration by the Natural Resource Management Ministerial Council to improve the development of fundamental Australia-wide sets of natural resource data.
reduce duplication by:
- identifying opportunities for cooperation to avoid duplication and maximise benefits of investment in the collection of natural resource data.