Assessment of Montane Peatlands and Swamps EEC on NSW Crown Forest Estate

The operational map for Montane Peatlands and Swamps was constructed to resolve long-standing issues surrounding its identification, location and extent within the NSW State Forest estate covered by the eastern Regional Forest Agreements. \r\nThe project’s Threatened Ecological Community (TEC) Reference Panel (the Panel) reviewed the determination for Montane Peatlands and Swamps and agreed upon a set of diagnostic parameters for its identification through aerial photograph interpretation (API). These parameters included an elevation of greater than 400m and, broadly, the presence of treeless native vegetation on poorly drained soils. \r\nUsing API, we then assessed whether Montane Peatlands and Swamps is present within more than 828,000 hectares of state forests within the coastal, tableland and montane regions of eastern NSW. A number of State Forests were excluded from the assessment because they fell below the elevation threshold or were underlain by Triassic sandstone sediments, which are explicitly excluded in the determination for Montane Peatlands and Swamps. \r\nIn total we identified 1729.5 hectares of candidate Montane Peatlands and Swamps across State Forests in eastern NSW. From this we constructed several operational maps showing the extent of the Montane Peatlands and Swamps TEC within the relevant State Forests. More than 60% of the total mapped areas were located in the southern tablelands. The largest areas of the candidate TEC were mapped in Bago, Glenbog and Badja State Forests in the south, and in Boonoo and Girard State Forests in the north. Patch size varied, with more than 200 patches being smaller than 0.1 hectare and around 50 patches being larger than 30 hectares. \r\nIt is noted that the broad mapping criteria will have captured a wide range of floristic assemblages including swamps, bogs, marshes, fens, meadows, grasslands and herb fields. Not all of these assemblage will be Montane Peatlands and Swamps, and it is highly likely that the mapping has captured two related TECs due to their overlapping environmental gradients and similar vegetation structure. These two TECs (Upland Wetlands of the Drainage Divide of the New England Bioregion and Carex Sedgeland of the New England Tableland, Nandewar, Brigalow Belt South and NSW North Coast Bioregions) are both candidate TECs within State Forests in their own right.\r\n\r\nOperational TEC Mapping have been derived by API at a viewing scale between 1-4000 using ADS40 50 cm pixel imagery and 1 m derived LIDAR DEM grids for floodplain EECs.

本研究为东部区域森林协定覆盖的新南威尔士州（New South Wales, NSW）国有林资产内的山地泥炭地与沼泽（Montane Peatlands and Swamps）构建了作业级分布图，旨在解决长期以来围绕其识别、定位与分布范围存在的争议。
本项目的濒危生态群落（Threatened Ecological Community, TEC）咨询专家组（下称“专家组”）对山地泥炭地与沼泽的划定标准进行了审议，并通过航空照片解译（aerial photograph interpretation, API）确定了一套用于识别该群落的诊断参数。这些参数包括海拔高于400米，以及大致而言，在排水不良的土壤上存在无树木原生植被。
随后，研究团队利用航空照片解译技术，对新南威尔士州东部沿海、台地及山地区域内超过82.8万公顷的国有林开展评估，以确定其中是否存在山地泥炭地与沼泽。部分国有林因海拔低于阈值，或基底为三叠纪砂岩沉积物（该类沉积物在山地泥炭地与沼泽的划定标准中明确被排除）而未纳入本次评估。
最终，研究团队在新南威尔士州东部国有林内共识别出1729.5公顷的候选山地泥炭地与沼泽。基于此，我们绘制了多幅作业级分布图，用以展示相关国有林内山地泥炭地与沼泽濒危生态群落的分布范围。超过60%的制图区域位于南部台地。候选濒危生态群落的最大连片区域分别分布于南部的巴戈（Bago）、格伦博格（Glenbog）和巴贾（Badja）国有林，以及北部的布努（Boonoo）和吉拉尔（Girard）国有林。斑块面积差异显著，其中超过200个斑块面积小于0.1公顷，约50个斑块面积大于30公顷。
需要说明的是，本次采用的宽泛制图标准涵盖了多种植物群落类型，包括沼泽、泥炭沼泽、沼泽湿地、沼泽草甸、草原以及草本群落。但并非所有这些群落均属于山地泥炭地与沼泽；由于两类相关濒危生态群落的环境梯度存在重叠且植被结构相似，本次制图很可能同时涵盖了这两类群落。这两类濒危生态群落分别为新英格兰生物区分水线高地湿地（Upland Wetlands of the Drainage Divide of the New England Bioregion）和新英格兰台地、南德瓦尔（Nandewar）、南布里加洛生物带（Brigalow Belt South）以及新南威尔士州北海岸生物区的薹草沼泽（Carex Sedgeland of the New England Tableland, Nandewar, Brigalow Belt South and NSW North Coast Bioregions），二者本身均为国有林范围内的候选濒危生态群落。
本次作业级濒危生态群落制图采用航空照片解译完成，解译比例尺为1:4000，使用了ADS40传感器获取的50厘米分辨率像素影像，以及用于洪泛平原濒危生态群落的1米分辨率激光雷达数字高程模型（LIDAR DEM）栅格数据。