Spatial extent of IUCN ecosystem functional groups at 250 m resolution for freshwater, terrestrial, marine and transitional realms for Australia: pre-1750, 2010-11, 2015-16 and 2020-21

The extent data products in this data collection comprise spatial data describing the distribution of International Union for the Conservation of Nature Global Ecosystem Typology (IUCN-GET; Keith et al. 2022; see also https://global-ecosystems.org/explore) ecosystem functional groups (EFG) across the Ecosystem Accounting Area (EAA, see Liu et al. (2024)) defined for national ecosystem accounts.
This collection comprises ecosystem extent data for Australia for use in national ecosystem accounts. The data provided are spatial data in the form of GeoTiff raster files for the majority of IUCN-GET ecosystem functional groups (EFG; Keith et al. 2022). Exceptions to this are EFGs in the Rivers and streams biome, and the Artesian springs and oases EFG within the Lakes biome. For all raster data, except the pelagic ocean waters biome, the EFGs are delineated for four time periods: pre-1750, 2010-11, 2015-16 and 2020-21.
The data are generated using national-scale input datasets for Australian ecosystems, along with additional supporting datasets. Both source and derived datasets were combined into a spatial layer, with each pixel allocated to a single EFG across the EAA, using the Simple Standard for Sharing Ontology Mappings (Matentzoglu et al. 2022) for cross-referencing ecosystem entities from national datasets to the EFGs.
These data align with other data prepared for Australia under the National Ecosystem Accounting Project, including for biodiversity, ecosystem condition and ecosystem services.