Land use zones derived from HCAS v2.1 and IBRA 7 as used in the Land Chapter of the Australia State of the Environment 2021 report

Three land use zones were spatially delineated for use in developing summary assessments in the Land Chapter of the Australia State of the Environment 2021 report. The boundaries of the land use zones are based on IBRA 7 regions and were clustered using regional averages of HCAS v2.1 habitat condition (base model 2001-18). \n\nThe following thresholds of regional HCAS v2.1 averages were used to group regions into one or other zone:\n1. Intensive land use zone (ILZ) is where the mean HCAS scores are ≤0.7. \n2. Extensive land use zone (ELZ) is where the mean HCAS scores are >0.7 and ≤0.8.\n3. Relatively Natural Zone (RNZ) is where the mean HCAS scores are >0.8.\n\nThe zones are shown as the inset map in Figure 6 of the Land chapter:\nWilliams KJ, Hunter B, Schmidt B, Woodward E and Cresswell I (2021) Australia State of the Environment 2021 - Land. Independent report to the Australian Government Minister for the Environment, Commonwealth of Australia. DOI: 10.26194/6EAM-6G50.\nLineage: The following lineage was used to develop the land use zones:\n1. Generate the HCAS v2.1 zonal average for each of the IBRA7 regions as a table\n2. Attach the zonal average to the IBRA7 regions dataset as an attribute\n3. Use the land use zones delineated for IBRA 6.1 subregions (unpublished data assumed developed by ERIN and Ian Cresswell and used in an earlier version of the State of the Environment Report) as a guide to where to set the average HCAS v2.1 threshold\n4. Determine HCAS v2.1 thresholds to apply and add an attribute to the dataset labelling and delineating the zone \nRelevant attributes: \n- LandUseZone: RNZ, ELZ, ILZ\n- LUZ_HCAS: "HCAS v2.1 mean >0.8 and 0.7 and