The eAtlas is a web delivery platform for environmental research data that focuses on data management and data visualisation. As part of the National Environmental Science Program (NESP) the eAtlas was responsible for coordinating the publication of data generated by all research projects in the NESP Tropical Water Quality (TWQ) hub. The focus of the eAtlas was to:

Actively engage projects on data management issues.

Provide in-depth review of final datasets to ensure quality data publications suitable for future reuse.

Provide permanent hosting and publication of the hub datasets and metadata.

Develop and host visualisations of spatial datasets for users to quickly assess the suitability of the data for their research, and for environmental managers to view without specialist tools.

Provide a web platform for creating project centric websites that highlight stories based around research project data

The data management under the NESP TWQ hub was more successful than previous research programs that the eAtlas has been associated with over the last 12 years. A greater percentage of data products from research projects were captured and published to a high standard. As of 7 June 2021, 94 datasets were published from the NESP TWQ hub which is significantly more than the 49 datasets from the previous National Environmental Research Program Tropical Ecosystem (NERP TE) program in 2011 – 2014, and 14 datasets from the Marine and Tropical Science Research Facility (MTSRF) in 2008 - 2010.

As part of the project final reporting a comparison was made between the size of the NESP TWQ metadata records, as measured by word count of the title, abstract and lineage, to those of similar environmental datasets in other data repositories, including the AODN, CSIRO, NESP MB hub and JCU. The aim of this analysis was to determine which aspects of the data management workflow used on NESP TWQ projects contributed to the level of detail in the metadata records. The spreadsheet associated with the word count analysis is available for download. More detail on the methods are available in the NESP-TWQ 5.15 final report (awating publication on the https://nesptropical.edu.au/ website).

TERN Ecosystem Data Services and Analytics

TERN Research Data Repository

Simplify your research data collection with the help of the research data repository managed by the Terrestrial Ecosystem Research Network. Our collection of ecosystem data includes ecoacustics, bio acoustics, lead area index information and much more.

The TERN research data collection provides analysis-ready environment data that facilitates a wide range of ecological research projects undertaken by established and emerging scientists from Australia and around the world. The resources which we provide support scientific investigation in a wide array of environment and climate research fields along with decision-making initiatives.

Explore Our Ecosystem Data Portals

Open access ecosystem data collections via the TERN Data Discovery Portal and sub-portals:

Access all TERN Environment Data

Discover datasets published by TERN’s observing platforms and collaborators. Search geographically, then browse, query and extract the data via the TERN Data Discovery Portal.

Search EcoPlots data

Search, integrate and access Australia’s plot-based ecology survey data.

Download ausplotsR

Extract, prepare, visualise and analyse TERN Ecosystem Surveillance monitoring data in R.

Search EcoImages

Search and download Leaf Area Index (LAI), Phenocam and Photopoint images.

Explore our data services

Tools that support the discovery, anaylsis and re-use of data:

Visualise the data

We’ve teamed up with ANU to provide 50 landscape and ecosystem datasets presented graphically.

Access CoESRA Virtual Desktop

A virtual desktop environment that enables users to create, execute and share environmental data simulations.

Submit data with SHaRED

Our user friendly tool to upload your data securely to our environment database so you can contribute to Australia’s ecological research.

Other data portals, tools and services

The Soil and Landscape Grid of Australia provides relevant, consistent, comprehensive, nation-wide data in an easily-accessible format. It provides detailed digital maps of the country’s soil and landscape attributes at a finer resolution than ever before in Australia.

The annual Australia’s Environment products summarise a large amount of observations on the trajectory of our natural resources and ecosystems. Use the data explorer to view and download maps, accounts or charts by region and land use type. The website also has national summary reports and report cards for different types of administrative and geographical regions.

TERN’s ausplotsR is an R Studio package for extracting, preparing, visualising and analysing TERN’s Ecosystem Surveillance monitoring data. Users can use the package to directly access plot-based data on vegetation and soils across Australia, with simple function calls to extract the data and merge them into species occurrence matrices for analysis or to calculate things like basal area and fractional cover.

The Australian Cosmic-Ray Neutron Soil Moisture Monitoring Network (CosmOz) delivers soil moisture data for 16 sites over an area of about 30 hectares to depths in the soil of between 10 to 50 cm. In 2020, the CosmOz soil moisture network, which is led by CSIRO, is set to be expanded to 23 sites.

The TERN Mangrove Data Portal provides a diverse range of historical and contemporary remotely-sensed datasets on extent and change of mangrove ecosystems across Australia. It includes multi-scale field measurements of mangrove floristics, structure and biomass, a diverse range of airborne imagery collected since the 1950s, and multispectral and hyperspectral imagery captured by drones, aircraft and satellites.

The TERN Wetlands and Riparian Zones Data Portal provides access to relevant national to local remotely-sensed datasets and also facilitates the collation and collection of on-ground data that support validation.

ecocloud provides easy access to large volumes of curated ecosystem science data and tools, a computing platform and resources and tools for innovative research. ecocloud gives you 10GB of persistent storage to keep your code/notebooks so they are ready to go when you start up a server (R or Python environment). It uses the JupyterLabs interface, which includes connections to GitHub, Google Drive and Dropbox.

Analysis Ready Ecosystem Data

Our research data collection makes it easier for scientists and researchers to investigate and answer their questions by providing them with open data, research and management tools, infrastructure, and site-based research tools.

The TERN data portal provides open access ecosystem data. Our tools support data discovery, analysis, and re-use. The services which we provide facilitate research, education, and management. We maintain a network of monitoring site and sensor data streams for long-term research as part of our research data repository.

This land suitability for Peanut raster data (in GeoTIFF format) represents areas of potential suitability for this crop and its specific irrigation management systems in the Flinders and Gilbert catchments of North Queensland. The data is coded 1-5: 1 - Suitable with no limitations; 2 - Suitable with minor limitations; 3 - Suitable with moderate limitations; 4 - Marginal; 5 - Unsuitable. The land suitability evaluation methods used to produce this data are a modification of methods of the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the UN (FAO). This data is part of the Flinders and Gilbert Agricultural Resource Assessment (FGARA) project and is designed to support sustainable regional development in Australia being of importance to Australian Governments and agricultural industries. The project identifies new opportunities for irrigation development in these remote areas by providing improved soil and land evaluation data to identify opportunities and promote detailed investigation. A companion dataset exists, “Confidence of suitability data for the FGARA project”. A link to this dataset can be found in the “related materials” section of this metadata record. Lineage: These suitability raster data for Peanut and its individual irrigation management systems have been created from a range of inputs and processing steps. Below is an overview. For more information refer to the CSIRO FGARA published reports and in particular: Bartley R, Thomas MF, Clifford D, Phillip S, Brough D, Harms D, Willis R, Gregory L, Glover M, Moodie K, Sugars M, Eyre L, Smith DJ, Hicks W and Petheram C (2013) Land suitability: technical methods. A technical report to the Australian Government for the Flinders and Gilbert Agricultural Resource Assessment (FGARA) project, CSIRO. Broadly, the steps were to: 1. Collate existing data (data related to: climate, topography, soils, natural resources, remotely sensed etc of various formats; reports, spatial vector, spatial raster etc). 2. Select additional soil and attribute site data by Latin hypercube statistical sampling method applied across the covariate space. 3. Carry out fieldwork to collect additional soil and attribute data and understand geomorphology and landscapes. 4. Build models from selected input data and covariate data using predictive learning via rule ensembles in the RuleFit3 software. 5. Create Digital Soil Mapping (DSM) key attributes output data. DSM is the creation and population of a geo-referenced database, generated using field and laboratory observations, coupled with environmental data through quantitative relationships. It applies pedometrics - the use of mathematical and statistical models that combine information from soil observations with information contained in correlated environmental variables, remote sensing images and some geophysical measurements. 6. Choose land management options and create suitability rules for DSM attributes. 7. Run suitability rules to produce limitation datasets using a modification on the FAO methods. 8. Create final suitability data for all land management options. Two companion datasets exist for this dataset. The first is linked to in the “related materials” section of this metadata record, entitled “Confidence of suitability data for the FGARA project”. The second (held by CSIRO Land and Water) includes expert opinion and knowledge about landscape processes or conditions that will influence agricultural development potential in these catchments, but were not captured sufficiently in the modelling process (and areas of expert opinion where the Mahanabolis method underestimates confidence). The two landscape features that require special attention are the basalt rock outcrops in the Upper Flinders catchment that were not well captured by the covariate data, and the secondary salinisation hazard in the central Flinders catchment. For more information refer to the report “Land suitability: technical methods. A technical report to the Australian Government for the Flinders and Gilbert Agricultural Resource Assessment (FGARA) project”.

The West Australia Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) initiated a North West Shelf (NWS) Marine Environmental Management Study in 1998 to develop and consolidate the technical information base, scientific understanding and predictive capabilities required to underpin environmental decision making in both the public and private sectors. Documents, reports and scientific publications pertinent to the North West Shelf are abundant, but vary widely in scope and the degree of relevance to environmental management. Much of the information is from industries and associated government departments involved in exploiting and managing resources, and much of it has been activity specific and/or site specific in nature. This has created rich pockets of specialist knowledge but, unfortunately, the information has not been integrated across industries, government departments or scientific disciplines. Such integration is attractive, but difficult to achieve. As an example, the petroleum industry initiated its own review in the early 1990s to coordinate the then state of knowledge among its members, but has recently identified the need to revisit the process. As a first step in the North West Shelf Marine Environmental Management Study, DEP commissioned the Australian Institute of Marine Science (AIMS) and the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) Division of Marine Research to conduct a compilation and review of scientific research and data related to the North West Shelf marine environment. This bibliography is one product of that effort; it provides a compilation of published and unpublished literature generally related to the North West Shelf marine environment and its management. The second product, a review of scientific research and identification of important knowledge gaps, appears as a separate report by Heyward, Revill, and Sherwood (2006), titled Review of Research and Data Relevant to Marine Environmental Management of Australias North West Shelf.

Cyclone tracks were constructed using data supplied by the National Climate Centre in the Head Office of the Bureau of Meteorology. These records contained information on the timing, route and …Show full descriptionCyclone tracks were constructed using data supplied by the National Climate Centre in the Head Office of the Bureau of Meteorology. These records contained information on the timing, route and intensity of the cyclone, though prior to the advent of GPS and automated monitoring, some of this information was approximate at best. The final footprint of the cyclone used by the Catastrophe agents in NWS-InVitro was constructed by mapping a polygon over each leg of a cyclone's route, with the track as the centreline and a width of 30km on either side of that central track. These footprints and an intensity index were stored in the Cyclone.data and Disaster.data files for use in NWS-InVitro.

What is the NEII?

The National Environmental Information Infrastructure (NEII) is an information platform designed to improve discovery, access and re-use of nationally significant environmental data. It proposes a network of standards-based IT components, developed in collaboration with a number of technical and strategic partners.

The Bureau of Meteorology is leading the development of the information infrastructure with our partners in the National Environmental Information Infrastructure Reference Group and the Australian Government's Environmental Information Advisory Group.

Why do we need an NEII?

Governments, industry and the community need comprehensive, trusted and timely environmental information to make sound decisions about Australia’s natural assets. The nation invests significant resources in acquiring, managing and delivering environmental information. At the national level this includes data and information for:

weather, climate and water monitoring and prediction services, earth science and national mapping programmes biodiversity assessment and management, land use and land management input to national and international environmental reporting obligations, such as the State of the Environment and State of the Forests reports. Significant investment also occurs through research infrastructure activities supported by the National Collaborative Research Infrastructure Strategy, the National Environmental Science Program, the Cooperative Research Centres Program, and activities within CSIRO and in academia.

However users can find it difficult to discover, access and re-use environmental information because it often only exists within individual organisations or environmental domains (e.g. within atmospheric or marine communities). Furthermore, where data can be found, access can be problematic because: * data may use agency-specific or domain-specific proprietary file formats * increasing data volumes make data delivery difficult * data licensing may be restricted * not all agencies are equipped to provide data and outreach services.

The National Environmental Information Infrastructure provides a framework to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of finding and using environmental information, thereby increasing the value of our nation’s investment.

Accessing the NEII

The NEII website is at http://neii.gov.au

Alternatively you may access the NEII via the resources below.

NWSJEMS study outputs are accessed using this application which is normally distributed on DVD with the accompanying datasets. ViewNWS is a user interface and dataset which was designed for the presentation of environmental, social and economic data, the very factors that depict the state of an ecosystem as it evolves in response to natural forcing and human use. There are several ViewNWS Management Strategy Evaluation (MSE) displays which include maps, digital images and time series data. The software is written in Visual Basic and uses ESRI Map Objects for the spatial component.

The data-rich screens of the NWS Technical User Interface mainly serve for analysis of raw inputs into InVitro, the spatially explicit agent-based biophysical simulation model at the core of this Study. The software is written in Java.

The 23 Conservation Management Zones of Australia are geographic areas, classified according to their ecological and threat characteristics. The zones are also aligned with the Interim Biogeographic Regionalisation of Australia.

The Conservation Management Zones provide a way of understanding Australia’s natural environment that will assist in long-term conservation planning and help the Australian Government to better design, deliver and report on Natural Resource Management (NRM) investments, including ensuring alignment of national NRM priorities with local action.

The Conservation Management Zones also provide a filter through which to make national environmental and socio-economic data regionally meaningful, accessible and comprehensible to all.

They provide a framework for gathering on-ground knowledge and expertise about the environment. This will improve information flow to the Australian Government and other key decision makers about regional NRM requirements, best practice management, emerging NRM issues and knowledge gaps.

The Conservation Management Zones do not represent any change to existing administrative boundaries or governance structures, but aim to support the NRM and wider community to cooperatively manage environmental assets across boundaries, where they share common threats, ecological characteristics and stakeholders.

The project builds on the Interim Biogeographic Regionalisation of Australia (IBRA) which has been used to support planning of the National Reserve System, but consolidates the 85 mainland IBRA regions into 23 Conservation Management Zones, where IBRA regions share common characteristics.

Further information and profiles describing the zones can be accessed throught the Department of the Environments web site at - https://www.environment.gov.au/biodiversity/conservation-management-zones

v. A. Main report / Margules Groome Pöyry Pty Ltd --v. B. Appendix 1 -- Grafton management area EIS supporting documents nos. 1-6: no. 1. Terrestrial fauna of the Grafton and Casino State Forest Management Areas / A.P. Smith, S.P. Andrews and D.M. Moore -- no. 2. A description of the flora and an assessment of impacts of the proposed forestry operations in the Grafton Forest Management Area /D.M. Moore and A.G. Floyd -- no. 3. Soil report, Grafton Forest Management Area EIS study / Veness & Associates Pty Limited -- no. 4. European heritage, historical report / Blackmore & Associates -- no. 5. Archaeological survey of historical sites Grafton Forest Management Area / Susan A. Pearson -- no. 6. European disturbance history of Dalmorton State Forest / Pauline Curby.

Australia Municipal Waste Incinerated: % of Treated Waste data was reported at 0.550 % in 2021. This records a decrease from the previous number of 0.610 % for 2020. Australia Municipal Waste Incinerated: % of Treated Waste data is updated yearly, averaging 1.630 % from Dec 2007 (Median) to 2021, with 15 observations. The data reached an all-time high of 2.130 % in 2007 and a record low of 0.510 % in 2018. Australia Municipal Waste Incinerated: % of Treated Waste data remains active status in CEIC and is reported by Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. The data is categorized under Global Database’s Australia – Table AU.OECD.GGI: Environmental: Waste Management: OECD Member: Annual.

Environmental Impact Statement: Rehabilitation and environmental management plan for Z.C. Mines.

The 23 Conservation Management Zones of Australia are geographic areas, classified according to their ecological and threat characteristics. The zones are also aligned with the Interim Biogeographic Regionalisation of Australia.

The Conservation Management Zones provide a way of understanding Australia’s natural environment that will assist in long-term conservation planning and help the Australian Government to better design, deliver and report on Natural Resource Management (NRM) investments, including ensuring alignment of national NRM priorities with local action.

The Conservation Management Zones also provide a filter through which to make national environmental and socio-economic data regionally meaningful, accessible and comprehensible to all.

They provide a framework for gathering on-ground knowledge and expertise about the environment. This will improve information flow to the Australian Government and other key decision makers about regional NRM requirements, best practice management, emerging NRM issues and knowledge gaps.

The Conservation Management Zones do not represent any change to existing administrative boundaries or governance structures, but aim to support the NRM and wider community to cooperatively manage environmental assets across boundaries, where they share common threats, ecological characteristics and stakeholders.

The project builds on the Interim Biogeographic Regionalisation of Australia (IBRA) which has been used to support planning of the National Reserve System, but consolidates the 85 mainland IBRA regions into 23 Conservation Management Zones, where IBRA regions share common characteristics.

Further information and profiles describing the zones can be accessed throught the Department of the Environment and Energys web site at - https://www.environment.gov.au/biodiversity/conservation-management-zonesCC - Attribution (CC BY) This data has been licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 Australia Licence. More information can be found at http://www.ausgoal.gov.au/creative-commons. © Commonwealth of Australia (Department of the Environment and Energy) 2015 As per the Creative Commons by Attribution terms accessible online (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/) under "Attribution CC BY"

NWSJEMS was a A$7.7m marine environmental study of the North West Shelf, jointly funded by CSIRO and the Western Australian Government. The overarching objective was to develop and demonstrate practical science-based methods that could support integrated regional planning and multiple-use management of the North West Shelf marine ecosystems. This datasets is historic species occurrences covering marine and some terrestrial species. Project information at http://www.cmar.csiro.au/nwsjems/ and https://coastalresearch.csiro.au/?q=node/56

The National Waste Database (https://www.awe.gov.au/environment/protection/waste/national-waste-reports/2020) is a repository for Australia's solid waste data. This collection of waste data is useful however has some issues: The timeseries is not complete, as some years are missing. Allocation to industries is very coarse, there are only 3 waste generating entities: construction and demolition, commercial and industrial, and municipal (households). Further, not all reporting regions (States and Territories) provide data at the same resolution of material type.

We have created an open source dataset in an attempt to solve some of these issues. Missing years are filled using linear interpolation. The regional resolution is disaggregated to SA2 regions using the ABS Business Register (https://www.abs.gov.au/Ausstats/abs@.nsf/0/49658AFA6CC395CECA2583A700121A41). Municipal (households) waste is split into SA2s from state totals using population. The ABS Waste Account is used to establish a relationship between waste types and generating sectors (https://www.abs.gov.au/statistics/environment/environmental-management/waste-account-australia-experimental-estimates/latest-release).

The data is published in both sparse tensor (.mat) format and labelled flat files (.csv). The dataset dimensions are:

- years: 2007 - 2019,

- regions: 2310 SA2 (2016) ASGS regions,

- entities: 115 generating entities; 114 SUPG (supply-use product group) industries + 1 households,

- waste_types: 69 waste material types,

- treatments: 5 waste treatment methods

This dataset is made available under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

This layer is displayed on the Environmental significance - vegetation management overlay map in City Plan version 7 as 'Matters of local environmental significance' (not including 'Vegetation protection order'). This layer identifies general, medium and high priority vegetation. The layer is also available in Council’s City Plan interactive mapping tool. For further information on City Plan, please visit http://www.goldcoast.qld.gov.au/planning-and-building/city-plan-2015-19859.html

Open data strategy for the Department of the Environment, Science and Innovation, listing data collected by the department, timetables for its release and standards for data management.

Simple, conceptual geomorphic models can assist environmental managers in making informed decisions regarding management of the coast at continental and regional scales. This basic information, detected from aerial photographs and/or satellite images, can be used to ascertain the relative significance of several common environmental issues, including: sediment trapping efficiency, turbidity, water circulation, and habitat change due to sedimentation for different types of clastic coastal depositional environments.

The Database of Ecological Communities of National Environmental Significance stores maps, taxonomic, ecological, and management information about Ecological Communities of National Environmental …Show full descriptionThe Database of Ecological Communities of National Environmental Significance stores maps, taxonomic, ecological, and management information about Ecological Communities of National Environmental Significance listed in the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation (EPBC) Act 1999 as threatened ecological communities. EPBC listed threatened ecological communities data is available in this generalised gridded form for public download.CC - Attribution (CC BY) This data has been licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 Australia Licence. More information can be found at http://www.ausgoal.gov.au/creative-commons. © Commonwealth of Australia (Department of the Environment and Energy) 2018 Spatial data for Threatened Ecological Communities has no legal status and must always defer to the Conservation Advice. It is unsafe to use the spatial data only to decide if an ecological community of national environmental significance occurs at a particular location.

This article is the introduction to a special issue of Continental Shelf Research containing papers giving research results produced as part of Australia's Torres Strait Co-operative Research Centre (CRC) Program.