Indicators of Catchment Condition in the Intensive Land Use Zone of Australia – Protected areas

\n\nA\n\nIt should be noted that this data is now somwhat dated!\n\nLand protected from development through land-use zoning is relatively free\nfrom human activities that lead to habitat destruction and species decline.\nLand-use zoning is a planning tool. In general protected lands are not subject\nto land-use changes at the catchment scale. Wetlands or streams connected\nhydrologically to other catchments will be vulnerable to upstream/catchment\nimpacts.\n\nThe Collaborative Australian Protected Areas Database (CAPAD) at Environment\nAustralia has protected areas mapped at the 1:250K scale. The dataset has been\ncompiled from cadastre data which is mapped at finer scales than 1:250K and is\nconsidered to have excellent spatial precision. Data reliability is high.\n\nThe indicator is not a measure of pristine condition, as many protected areas\nhave different zonings in the past and been subject to activities which have\nled to habitat decline. There are also different classes of protection and\ndifferent sizes of area protected, some of which may be too small to conserve\nbiodiversity. However, further decline is prevented through their current\nprotected status, and in this sense % area of protected land indicates future\nviability for those habitats represented within protected areas. Protected\nareas will change through time.\n\nNature conservation areas such as national parks provide relatively stable\nsystems where biota and landscapes are protected from many forms of\ndisturbance. In higher rainfall areas with steeper slopes a protected area in\nthe headwaters of a catchment may convey substantial benefits, particularly to\ndownstream waterways and to neighbouring areas as refuge for wildlife. Where\nthe protected areas are in the lower reaches of catchments, the value of\nprotected areas for nature conservation are still high but the benefit to\nwater coming from further up the catchment will be less. In drier, flatter\ncatchments protected areas will probably not contribute substantially to the\ncondition of surrounding areas in the catchment. For example, a salt lake\nnational park will have little beneficial effect on the surrounding lands. In\nthese cases the aggregation of small area catchments in relatively good\ncondition to larger AWRC basins is misleading because the benefits are\nspatially restricted. The overall picture as shown by the 500 and 5A5 maps is\ndominated by the lowest category.\n\nThe AWRC map gives a quite misleading picture, missing large areas that are\nnot protected and giving a better than average picture for much of S and the\nNT. Major areas with relatively good protection are: southwestern Tasmania,\nEast Gippsland and southern New South Wales, the Blue Mountains, parts of the\nBorder Ranges and the New England Plateau, the Alligator Rivers region (NT),\nparts of Victoria River Downs, Purnululu, and areas north and west of Ceduna\n(SA). In the relatively poorest class are central and northern parts of the\nMurray-Darling Basin, the Burnett, Burdekin and Mitchell catchments (Qld), the\nDaly and Fitzmaurice River catchments (NT), most catchments in WA, and\ncatchments of the Mount Lofty Ranges (SA).\n\nData: Weeds of National Significance ( NLWR / Thorn and Lynch, 2000, The\ndetermination of weeds of national significance, 1:12.5m and 1:50m)\n\nData are available as:\n\n * continental maps at 5km (0.05 deg) cell resolution for the ILZ;\n * spatial averages over CRES defined catchments (CRES, 2000) in the ILZ;\n * spatial averages over the AWRC river basins in the ILZ.\n\nSee [further metadata](http://data.daff.gov.au/anrdl/metadata_files/pa_iccilr9ab\n__06021axx.xml) for more detail.\n\n