NSW Land Cover ThemeLand cover is the visible, biophysical cover on the Earth’s surface including trees, shrubs, grasses, soils, exposed rocks and water bodies, as well as anthropogenic elements such as plantations, crops and built environments. Land cover changes for many reasons, including seasonal weather, severe weather events such as cyclones, floods and fires, and human activities such as mining, agriculture and urbanisation.

Remote sensing data recorded over a period of time allows the observation of land cover dynamics. Classifying these responses provides a robust and repeatable way of characterising land cover types. These complement on ground survey where available.

Datasets included in the Land Cover Theme: NSW Interim Native Vegetation Extent (2008-v2)NSW SLATS LANDSAT Woody Change: Derived VectorDatabase 1988 – 2010Plant Community Type ClassificationLand UseSoil LandscapesLandscapes and SoilsSoil data online

The Land Cover theme is an essential and authoritative source of information that can provide insight into the behaviour of land cover to a wide variety of conditions, both natural and situational.

This provides natural resource managers with the capacity to identify emerging patterns of land cover change and provides a broad spatial and historical context within which to interpret that land cover change.

This can be combined with other information to assess if any pro- active intervention is required to alter change happening to the land cover.

Information about Land Cover dynamics is essential to understanding and addressing a range of national challenges including:

mapping and monitoring land use, natural resources, biodiversity, water usage, drought, pollution, minerals, water quality, wetlands, groundwater dependent ecosystems, land clearing, floodplains, crop acreage and growth, remnant vegetation, land degradation, irrigation, dry land salinity, and vegetation condition management of forests, rivers, fisheries, catchments and agriculture national and state inventories of forests, greenhouse gases, endangered species, land cover, topography, and carbon sinks emergency management of floods, bushfires and landslides.

The NSW Department of Planning and Environment – Environment and Heritage Group is the source of truth for this data theme. The Environment and Heritage Group manages the state-wide vegetation, soils and land use datasets needed to support the Land Cover definitions. The current status of the land cover related datasets are as listed. Datasets included in the Land Cover Theme:

NSW Native Vegetation Extent For access to data please use below URLhttps://www.environment.nsw.gov.au/topics/animals-and-plants/biodiversity/nsw-bionet/about-bionet-vegetation-classification/bionet-vegetation-maps/vegetation-extent-and-condition-products#nativeWoody Extent and Foliage For access to data please use below URLhttps://datasets.seed.nsw.gov.au/dataset/landsat-woody-extent-and-foliage-projective-cover-fpc-ver-2-1-25m-20087355dPlant Community Type ClassificationFor access to data please use below URLhttps://www.environment.nsw.gov.au/topics/animals-and-plants/biodiversity/nsw-bionet/nsw-plant-community-type-classificationLand Use For access to data please use below URLhttps://datasets.seed.nsw.gov.au/dataset/nsw-landuse-2017-v1p2-f0edSoil Landscapes Landscapes and Soils Soil data onlineFor access to data please use below URLhttps://www.environment.nsw.gov.au/topics/land-and-soil/information/espadealternatively, eSpade can be access through the link belowhttp://espade.environment.nsw.gov.au/NSW Soil and Land Information System (SALIS)For access to data please use the URL http://www.environment.nsw.gov.au/Salis5app/Main/Account/LoginThe Electronic Digital Infield Regolith Tool (eDIRT)For access to data please use the URL http://edirt.environment.nsw.gov.au/

Custodian agency and contact:

Environment and Heritage Group 

Head Office

PO Box A290 Sydney South NSW 1232

Email: info@environment.nsw.gov.au

Metadata Portal Metadata Information

Content Title

NSW Land Cover Theme

Content Type

Document

Description

The Land Cover theme is an essential and authoritative source of information that can provide insight into the behaviour of land cover to a wide variety of conditions, both natural and situational

Initial Publication Date

11/02/2020

Data Currency

18/08/2023

Data Update Frequency

Other

Content Source

File Type

Document

Attribution

Data Theme, Classification or Relationship to other Datasets

Accuracy

Spatial Reference System (dataset)

Other

Spatial Reference System (web service)

Other

WGS84 Equivalent To

Other

Spatial Extent

Content Lineage

Data Classification

Unclassified

Data Access Policy

Open

Data Quality

Terms and Conditions

Creative Commons

Standard and Specification

Data Custodian

NSW Spatial Services

Point of Contact

Please contact us via the Spatial Services Customer Hub

Data Aggregator

Environment and Heritage Group  Email: info@environment.nsw.gov.au

Data Distributor

Additional Supporting Information

TRIM Number