Australian Natural Resources Information 2002
National Land and Water Resources Audit, 2002
ISBN: 0 642 37131 8
Meeting Audit objectives
The Audit information management program aimed to meet two of the Audit's six objectives:
Objective 3. Developing a national information system of compatible and readily accessible land and water data.
Objective 6. Providing a framework for monitoring Australia's land and water resources in an ongoing and structured way.
To achieve these objectives the Audit built on existing programs in the natural resources information field. Major achievements include:
Arrangements established with Commonwealth, State and Territory agencies that promote and maximise cooperation and collaboration in all aspects of data and information management.
- In 1999, the Audit signed bilateral data protocols with custodians of data in each State and Territory, and with Commonwealth agencies. The protocols streamlined the process of gaining access to data to undertake Audit assessments.
- In 2001, the Audit and ANZLIC - the Spatial Information Council, supported by the Commonwealth and all States and Territories, signed a landmark agreement to ensure ongoing community access to data from Audit assessments, and for future assessments. This agreement provides a model for future agreements between governments to simplify access to a wider range of data.
Consistent, comparable, Australia-wide data compiled for natural resource assessments.
- Australia-wide sets of data developed through Audit projects include the Australian Soil Resources Information System, the National Vegetation Information System, an Australia-wide map of land use in 1996/97, and a national inventory of estuaries and their condition. These data were used to support the assessments undertaken by the Audit.
- Australia-wide sets of data have also supported the work of other groups. For example in Western Australia the national land use map has supported plague locust control; in New South Wales it has been used in state of the environment reporting. Data compiled in the Audit's assessment of dryland salinity (NLWRA 2001b) have been used in the identification of priorities for the National Action Plan for Salinity and Water Quality. Data from the Audit's assessment of water quantity and quality (NLWRA 2001a) have been used to revise the Western Australian water management framework.
- Data products available to the community are described in the data catalogue in Appendix 1.
A system established for storing, managing and retrieving fundamental data, derived data and information products.
- The Audit has established one of the most comprehensive natural resource information systems available to the community anywhere in the world. However, much data still needs to be collected to support regional, State/Territory and national outcomes.
- The Australian Natural Resources Data Library, available over the Internet, provides free access to most of the detailed data outputs from Audit assessments.
- The Australian Natural Resources Atlas presents detailed regional information products with statistics, expert opinion and interpretation from Audit assessments.
- The Australian Natural Resources Atlas provides tools to help natural resource managers explore and create maps for any region in Australia, from catchment to national scale.
- To help ensure access to up-to-date data and information, the Australian Natural Resources Atlas presents information products from monitoring systems such as the Australian Collaborative Rangelands Information System (NLWRA 2001c).
- Products developed in partnership with Environment Australia State of the Environment Reporting (landscape health, water quality, estuaries) and Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry - Australia and the Australian Bureau of Statistics (agricultural statistics) are available through the Australian Natural Resources Atlas.
- Audit information services are linked to the more detailed stores of information available online from existing State and Territory initiatives, and to the Australian Spatial Data Directory to form a national distributed system for data query, display, mapping and access.
- Distributed systems, such as the National Vegetation Information System used in the Audit's assessment of native vegetation (NLWRA 2001e), are also being developed in partnership with States, Territories and the Commonwealth to support the continued update and delivery of fundamental data.
A common information management framework developed for all Audit projects.
- The Information Management Manual was released in 1999 (NLWRA 1999) to assist Audit projects collate data and information in a format that could be easily integrated with data from other projects.
- The Australian Natural Resources Information 2001 Operational Manual (NLWRA 2001f) released in December 2001 describes in detail the standards, guidelines and protocols used in design, development and implementation of the Australian Natural Resources Atlas and Data Library. The operational manual provides a template for implementing information systems, at international, national and regional levels.
Institutional and related arrangements developed to provide a data system to underpin natural resource assessments after the completion of the Audit.
- Arrangements are in place with Environment Australia and Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry - Australia, to continue to support the Australian Natural Resources Atlas and Data Library.
- With the Commonwealth Spatial Data Committee, the Audit has identified coordinators to help ensure that major databases from Audit projects continue to be consistently updated and made available to the community.