Land Cover and Land Use

Sub-Theme

Forests of Australia

​​​​​​​​​​​​​​Publication date: 16 February 2019​

Forests of Australia (2018) is a continental spatial ​dataset of forest extent, by national forest categories and types, assembled for Australia's State of the Forests Report 2018. It was developed from multiple forest, vegetation and land cover data inputs, including contributions from Australian, state and territory government agencies and external sources. 
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A forest is defined in this dataset as "An area, incorporating all living and non-living components, that is dominated by trees having usually a single stem and a mature or potentially mature stand height exceeding two metres and with existing or potential crown cover of overstorey​ strata about equal to or greater than 20 per cent. This includes Australia's diverse native forests and commercial plantations, regardless of age. It is also sufficiently broad to encompass areas of trees that are sometimes described as woodlands". 

The dataset was compiled by the Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics and Sciences (ABARES) for the National Forest Inventory (NFI), a collaborative partnership between the Australian and state and territory governments. The role of the NFI is to collate, integrate and communicate information on Australia's forests. States and territories agencies collect forest data using independent methods and at varying scales or resolutions. The NFI applies a national classification to state and territory data to allow seamless integration of these datasets. Multiple independent ​sources of external data are used to fill data gaps and improve the quality of the final data​set.

The NFI classifies forests into three national forest categories (Native forest, Commercial plantation, and Other forest) and then into various forest types. Commercial plantations presented in this dataset were sourced from the National Plantation Inventory (NPI) spatial dataset (2016), also produced by ABARES. Another dataset produced by ABARES, the Catchment scale Land Use and Management (CLUM) dataset (2016) was used to identify ​and mask out land uses that are inappropriate to map as forest.​

National Datasets in this Sub-Theme

National Forests of Australia

Purpose

The Forests of Australia (2018) dataset is produced to fulfil requirements of the Australia's National Forest Policy Statement​ (NFPS) and the Regional Forests Agreement (RFA) Act 2002 (Cwth), and is used by the Australian Government for domestic and international reporting. ​

Dataset Uses

  • Domestic and international reporting
  • Policy advice
  • Forest productivity assessments
  • Forest wood / log availability and commerciality assessments
  • Monitoring forest cover and biodiversity
  • Monitoring effectiveness and impacts of relevant legislation e.g. RFA Act
  • Monitoring impacts of relevant policies e.g. Plantations Vision2020, Managed Investment Scheme (MIS)
  • Climate change assessments
  • Carbon accounting assessments

Access and Licensing

Creative Commons Attribution 4.0

Access and Licensing Details

Products and Services relating to this dataset are made available under open access policy and guidelines. Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 Australia licence Attribution Non Commercial

Quality

State and territory data were accepted as provided and no further validation was required for the 1998, 2003 and 2008 versions of the dataset. A Multiple Lines of Evidence (MLE) approach, involving checking state and territory agencies data against independent datasets, was adopted to identify, validate and fix potential errors in the 2013 dataset.

Current Status

The dataset is produced every 5 years and each dataset is an independent snapshot. Three instances of the dataset exist 1998, 2003 and 2008.

There is currently no single vertical integration of all seven land cover datasets, as listed, for the national coverage.

Future Status

A fourth (2013) instance of the dataset is due for imminent release.

Provide a nationally consistent land cover dataset which supports and delivers land cover information through the vertical and horizontal integration of the listed datasets. This will allow linking of location of these features across all themes

Key Users

Federal, State and Territory Government Departments, industry and research communities.

Version

1.00

Details