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GEOSS Ecosystem Mapping for Australia

The physical drivers of ecosystem formation – macroclimate, lithology and landform – along with vegetation structural formations are key determinants of current ecosystem type. Each combination of these ecosystem drivers – each ‘ecological facet’ – provides a unique set of opportunities and challenges for life. <br>


Management and conservation should seek to understand and take in to account these drivers of ecosystem formation. By understanding the unique combinations of these drivers management strategies can plan for their full range of variation, and conservation efforts can ensure that unique ecosystems are not lost. Unfortunately, there is currently no Australia-wide standardized map of ecological facets at management-appropriate scales. <br>


By understanding the magnitude and distribution of unique combinations of these drivers, management strategies can plan for their full range of variation, and conservation efforts can ensure that unique ecosystems are not lost. Additionally, by improving our understanding of the past and present conditions that have given rise to current ecological facets this dataset could facilitate future predictive environmental modelling. Finally, this data could assisting biodiversity conservation, climate change impact studies and mitigation, ecosystem services assessment, and development planning <br>


Further information about the dataset can be found at <a href=" https://ternaus.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/TERNSup/pages/2276130817/GEOSS+Ecosystem+Map ">GEOSS Ecosystem Map,TERN Knowledge Base </a> .

Simple

Identification info

Date (Creation)
2017-11-01
Date (Publication)
2021-12-14
Date (Revision)
2025-12-10
Edition
1.0

Identifier

Title
DataCite
Code
doi:10.25901/weew-4k61
Codespace
http://dx.doi.org

Publisher

Terrestrial Ecosystem Research Network
Building 1019, 80 Meiers Rd
Indooroopilly
QLD
4068
Australia
+61 7 3365 9097

Author

University of Adelaide - Clarke, Ken (Academic)
Waite Road, Waite, South Australia, 5064, Australia
Waite
South Australia
5064
Australia

Co-author

University of Adelaide - Lewis, Megan (Head of School of Biological Sciences)
Waite Road, Waite, South Australia, 5064, Australia
Waite
South Australia
5064
Australia
Website
https://www.tern.org.au/

Purpose
TERN GEOSS Ecosystem Mapping for Australia aimed to map ecological facets for continental Australia, using methods modelled after similar prior mapping at continental and global scales, but with modifications for Australia. Each of the three major factors driving ecosystem formation – macroclimate, lithology and landform – were captured with one or two spatial indicators. Finally major vegetation structural formations were mapped and combined with the indicators of ecosystem formation to produce ‘ecological facets’.<br> Outcomes: The ultimate goal of this work was the production of the Ecological facets data product. These ecological facets allow for a better understanding of the current range of biophysical variation within and across Australian ecosystems. However, it is anticipated that for many applications the precursor spatial indicators will be more useful by themselves.
Credit
We at TERN acknowledge the Traditional Owners and Custodians throughout Australia, New Zealand and all nations. We honour their profound connections to land, water, biodiversity and culture and pay our respects to their Elders past, present and emerging.
Credit
This work was funded through TERN Landscapes. TERN is Australia’s land-based ecosystem observatory delivering data streams to enable environmental research and management (TERN, www.tern.org.au). TERN is part of Australia’s National Collaborative Research Infrastructure Strategy (NCRIS, www.education.gov.au/national-collaborative-research-infrastructure-strategy-ncris).
Status
Completed

Point of contact

University of Adelaide - Clarke, Ken (Academic)
Waite Road, Waite, South Australia, 5064, Australia
Waite Road
Waite
South Australia
5064
Australia

Point of contact

University of Adelaide - Lewis, Megan (Head of School of Biological Sciences)
Waite Road, Waite, South Australia, 5064, Australia
Waite Road
Waite
South Australia
5064
Australia
Topic category
  • Environment

Extent

Description
Australia
N
S
E
W


Temporal extent

Time period
1976-01-01 2016-01-01
Title
GEOSS Ecosystem Mapping (TERN Wiki Page)
Website
GEOSS Ecosystem Mapping (TERN Wiki Page)

Related documentation

Title
Clarke, K. and Lewis, M. (2017). GEOSS Ecosystem Mapping for Australia. TERN AusCover. https://www.tern.org.au/tern_landscape_auscover__geoss_ecosystem_mapping_for_australia__report_final/
Website
Clarke, K. and Lewis, M. (2017). GEOSS Ecosystem Mapping for Australia. TERN AusCover. https://www.tern.org.au/tern_landscape_auscover__geoss_ecosystem_mapping_for_australia__report_final/

Related documentation

Maintenance and update frequency
Not planned
GCMD Science Keywords
  • ECOLOGICAL DYNAMICS
  • LANDSCAPE ECOLOGY
ANZSRC Fields of Research
  • Ecology
TERN Parameter Vocabulary
  • ecological facet
  • Unitless
QUDT Units of Measure
  • Unitless
GCMD Horizontal Resolution Ranges
  • 30 meters - < 100 meters
GCMD Temporal Resolution Ranges
  • Annual
Keywords (Discipline)
  • surficial lithology
  • weathering intensity
  • land surface form
  • topographic moisture potential
  • vegetation structural formation
  • macroclimate class

Resource constraints

Use limitation
The Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) license allows others to copy, distribute, display, and create derivative works provided that they credit the original source and any other nominated parties. Details are provided at https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
File name
88x31.png
File description
CCBy Logo from creativecommons.org
File type
png
Linkage
https://w3id.org/tern/static/cc-by/88x31.png

Title
Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Licence
Alternate title
CC-BY
Edition
4.0
Website
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Access constraints
License
Use constraints
Other restrictions
Other constraints
TERN services are provided on an "as-is" and "as available" basis. Users use any TERN services at their discretion and risk. They will be solely responsible for any damage or loss whatsoever that results from such use including use of any data obtained through TERN and any analysis performed using the TERN infrastructure. <br />Web links to and from external, third party websites should not be construed as implying any relationships with and/or endorsement of the external site or its content by TERN. <br /><br />Please advise any work or publications that use this data via the online form at https://www.tern.org.au/research-publications/#reporting
Other constraints
Please cite this dataset as {Author} ({PublicationYear}). {Title}. {Version, as appropriate}. Terrestrial Ecosystem Research Network. Dataset. {Identifier}.

Resource constraints

Classification
Unclassified

Distribution Information

Distribution format
  • NetCDF

Distributor

Distributor

Terrestrial Ecosystem Research Network
Building 1019, 80 Meiers Rd
Indooroopilly
QLD
4068
Australia
OnLine resource
/attachment/5c427d8b-e5c4-43f3-9a20-71cbd6d5c6c6/TERN_Landscape_AusCover__GEOSS_Ecosystem_Mapping_fo_juKpFwX.pdf

Distribution Information

Distribution format

Distributor

Distributor

Terrestrial Ecosystem Research Network
80 Meiers Road, Indooroopilly, Queensland, 4068, Australia
Indooroopilly
Queensland
4068
Australia
OnLine resource
GEOSS Ecological Facets dataset

OnLine resource
Landscape Data Visualiser - GEOSS Ecosystem Mapping for Australia

OnLine resource
geoss_map_v2

GEOSS Ecosystem Mapping for Australia

OnLine resource
ro-crate-metadata.json

Data quality info

Hierarchy level
Dataset
Other
The GEOSS Ecosystem dataset is a continental dataset of ecological facets – unique combinations of ecosystem drivers and vegetation structural formations – was produced by combining the spatial indicators of macroclimate, lithology, landform, and vegetation structural formations.

Reference System Information

Reference system identifier
EPSG/EPSG:4326

Reference system type
Geodetic Geographic 2D

Metadata

Metadata identifier
urn:uuid/5c427d8b-e5c4-43f3-9a20-71cbd6d5c6c6

Title
TERN GeoNetwork UUID

Language
English
Character encoding
UTF8

Point of contact

Terrestrial Ecosystem Research Network
Building 1019, 80 Meiers Rd
Indooroopilly
QLD
4068
Australia
+61 7 3365 9097

Type of resource

Resource scope
Dataset
Metadata linkage
https://geonetwork.tern.org.au/geonetwork/srv/eng/catalog.search#/metadata/5c427d8b-e5c4-43f3-9a20-71cbd6d5c6c6

Point-of-truth metadata URL

Date info (Creation)
2017-11-01T00:00:00.000000+00:00
Date info (Revision)
2025-12-10T10:04:18.809507+00:00

Metadata standard

Title
ISO 19115-1:2014/AMD 1:2018 Geographic information - Metadata - Fundamentals
Edition
1

Metadata standard

Title
ISO/TS 19115-3:2016
Edition
1.0

Metadata standard

Title
ISO/TS 19157-2:2016
Edition
1.0
Title
Terrestrial Ecosystem Research Network (TERN) Metadata Profile of ISO 19115-3:2016 and ISO 19157-2:2016
Date (published)
2021
Edition
1.0

Identifier

Code
10.5281/zenodo.5652221
Website
https://github.com/ternaustralia/TERN-ISO19115/releases/tag/v1.0

 
 

Overviews

Spatial extent

N
S
E
W


Keywords

ANZSRC Fields of Research
Ecology
GCMD Science Keywords
ECOLOGICAL DYNAMICS LANDSCAPE ECOLOGY

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Access to the portal
Read here the full details and access to the data.

Associated resources

Not available


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