Ecological Knowledge System: National Biodiversity Assessment System (NBAS) Data

Collection: This collection contains derived datasets utilised in the National Biodiversity Assessment System (NBAS), developed as part of the Ecological Knowledge System (EKS). The EKS is a partnership between CSIRO and the Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water (DCCEEW) to establish a transparent and authoritative source of information, biodiversity assessment and forecast capability for the Nature Repair Market. The NBAS is a software and data package that provides a nationally consistent approach to forecasting the expected biodiversity benefits of a given project within the Nature Repair Market scheme.

This collection comprises information about the ecosystem typology used in the NBAS. It contains (1) a raster that denotes the location and boundaries of the ecosystem types as defined in NBAS (i.e. the intersections between the National Vegetation Information System (NVIS) major vegetation groups (MVGs) and Conservation Management Zones (CMZs), (2) an ecosystem identification key for each ecosystem type in the raster, and (3) an NBAS ecosystem typology table which reports the pre-1750 and extant ecosystem extent data, excluding MVGs that represent unclassified ecosystems, bare ground, inland water, and predominately non-terrestrial based ecosystems. These datasets are used in the NBAS to forecast expected biodiversity benefits of nature repair projects.

The NBAS is implemented via the PLANR tool (https://planr.gov.au/).

This data collection is based on research created under the Project An Ecological Knowledge System for the Nature Repair Market scheme, which was funded by DCCEEW. The Commonwealth owns the intellectual property rights in any material developed while carrying out the Project. Copyright is retained by CSIRO (2025).

Background: The NBAS provides a nationally consistent approach to assessing a project site’s current contribution to conserving biodiversity and forecasting the biodiversity benefits expected to result from project activities.
The NBAS uses proportional persistence of native biodiversity as the ‘common currency’ of project assessment. Biodiversity persistence estimates the proportion of biodiversity that could be expected to exist without significant loss or decline, both now and into the foreseeable future.

The NBAS (Version 1) outputs the following metrics:
• Ecosystem condition, which represents the capacity of an area to provide the structures and functions necessary for the persistence of all native species naturally expected to occur in that area if it were in an intact (or reference) state.

Ecosystem condition scores range from 0.0 (ecosystem integrity extinguished, ecosystem completely removed) to a maximum of 1.0 (ecosystem integrity in reference condition).
• Landscape connectivity, which estimates the system level contribution that a given area is estimated to make to enhancing the connectivity of habitat across the broader landscape.
• The conservation significance of the ecosystem types being protected or enhanced, accounting for their natural rarity and their level of depletion and degradation.
• The overall contribution that an area makes to enhancing biodiversity persistence at a system level, integrating the effects of the above three components.