This page accesses the findings of several programs aimed at capturing knowledge about the condition and trend of Australia’s pastoral lands. However, for policy documents such as the Draft National Rangelands Strategy, see the website of The Royal Society of Queensland.
Here we will link documents published under the historical programs of the National Land and Water Resources Audit (NLWRA), the Australian Collaborative Rangelands Information System (ACRIS) and the Australian Terrestrial Biodiversity Assessment (ATBA), along with a contemporary program GEOGLAM. These studies are/were Australia-wide. QSN is hosting the materials on this Queensland site to secure their availability to the world, and because a member of a member body (The Royal Society of Queensland) was instrumental in establishing these initiatives.
NLWRA (National Land and Water Resources Audit)
The invaluable resource of the National Land and Water Resources Audit can be explored via the web archive of Trove. The headline page captured on 20 July 2008 https://webarchive.nla.gov.au/awa/20080719224451/http://www.environment.gov.au/land/nlwra/index.html explains that it was funded by the Natural Heritage Trust . It was set up in 1997 to improve land, water and vegetation management by providing better information to resource managers.
The captured page National Land and Water Resources Audit Web Site indexes some of the descriptive information and analytical knowledge released by July 2008.
The Australian Natural Resources Atlas Australian Natural Resources Atlas was the web-based community interface to the information prepared by the Audit. It provided an extensive range of information across the seven key subjects. It was the repository of the entire suite of Audit outputs.
The rangelands-specific information has been re-published on QSN headline page: https://www.nlwra.scienceqld.org/.
In a separate QSN post, the waste and lost opportunity imposed upon scientists and the community generally by the closure of the Audit and related initiatives has been noted by the two principal Queensland-based leaders of the Audit initiative.
ACRIS
The rangelands-specific Australian Collaborative Rangelands Information System (ACRIS) derived from a proposal by the National Land and Water Resources Audit. Read more in a separate QSN post https://scienceqld.org/2024/07/05/2877/.
ATBA (Australian Terrestrial Biodiversity Assessment)
The NLWR Audit also initiated the Australian Terrestrial Biodiversity Assessment, as one of a series of assessments of natural resources under the umbrella title of Australian Natural Resources Atlas. Read more in a separate QSN post https://scienceqld.org/2023/11/16/biodiversity-asst-2002/.
GEOGLAM program
Around 2018 CSIRO and its program collaborators launched an interactive map and other tools to provide real time condition and trend data (monthly reporting) – including fractional differentiation of cover into photosynthesising vegetation (PV), non-photosynthesising vegetation (NPV) and bare soil with rangelands firmly in focus. Amazingly, it all launches on an iPhone6s proving that the Data61 hosting addresses access and operability issues of sophisticated systems that are often stymied by many factors (including people refusing to get new technology every couple of years to keep up with ‘security’ etc).
This rangelands-focused toolkit was funded out of the Australian National Landcare Program.
The GEOGLAM RaPP platform keys into user needs at the local level (500m resolution); scalable for global monitoring purposes, providing spatial and other data outputs.
1. Program
https://www.csiro.au/en/research/animals/livestock/RAPP-Map-GEOGLAM
2. Interactive tool here showing spatial extent of fractional cover (monthly) , rainfall (monthly) and a suite of other factors or attributes.
3. Explanatory document Monitoring groundcover: an online tool for Australian regions https://publications.csiro.au/publications/publication/PIcsiro:EP187950 or access the document via the QSN database.
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