Spatial analysis data for 'Lines in the sand: quantifying the cumulative development footprint in the world's largest remaining temperate woodland'

These datasets provide the data underlying the publication on <i>"Lines in the sand: quantifying the cumulative development footprint in the world’s largest remaining temperate woodland"</i> <em> https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10980-017-0558-z. </em>. The datasets are: (A) data in csv format: [1] development footprint by sample area: Information on the 24, ~490 km^2 sample areas assessed in the study, including the different infrastructure types (roads, railways, mapped tracks, un-mapped tracks which have been manually digitized in the study using aerial imagery and hub infrastructure such as mine pits and waste rock dumps, also manually digitized in the study). Also contains some key co-variables assessed as potential explanatory variables for development footprint. The region-wide modelling of development footprint found strong positive effects of mining project density and pastoralism, as well as a highly significant negative interaction between the two. At low mining project densities, development footprints are more extensive in pastoral areas, but at high mining project densities, pastoral areas are relatively less developed than non-pastoral areas, on average. [2] Great Western Woodlands (GWW) 20 km grid: The datasets provides data for the 20x20 km grid placed over the whole GWW and used for the regional estimation of development footprint, linear infrastructure density, and linear infrastructure type based on the region-wide analysis. Data is for each cell in the grid and provides the total length of roads in that grid cell, MINEDEX mining projects, pastoral status, etc. This dateset was used to project the data from the 24 study areas across the whole of the Great Western Woodlands and calculate region-wide estimates of development footprint and linear infrastructure lengths. [3] disturbance by patch: This dataset provides the data for each patch for the analysis of patch-level drivers of development footprint, which was performed to gain further insights into the effects of other landscape variables that what could be gleaned from the region-wide analysis. For this analysis, we divided sample areas into polygonal patch types, each with a unique combination of the following categorical co-variables: pastoral tenure, greenstone lithology, conservation tenure, ironstone formation, schedule-1 area clearing restrictions, environmentally sensitive area designation, vegetation formation, and sample area. For each patch type (n=261), we calculated the following attributes: a) number of mining projects, b) number of dead mineral tenements, c) sum of duration of all live and dead tenements, d) type of tenements (exploration/prospecting tenement, mining and related activities tenement, none), e) primary target commodity (gold, nickel, iron-ore, other), f) distance to wheatbelt, and g) distance to the nearest town. [4] mapped versus digitized tracks: This dataset provides mapped and un-mapped track widths, measured using high-resolution aerial imagery at at least 20 randomly-generated locations within each of 24 sample areas. Pastoral tenure and mining intensity for each sample area are included for analysis purposes. [5] edge effect scenarios: Hypothetical edge effect zones were created, based on effect zones gleaned from the literature and arranged under three scenarios, to reflect potential risks of offsite impacts in areas adjacent to development footprints observed (see appendix 3 of article). The calculated proportion of the entire GWW within edge effect zones varied from ~3% under the conservative scenario to ~35% under the maximal scenario. Within the range of development footprints observed in this study, the proportion of a landscape that lies within edge effect zones increases hyperbolically with the number of mining projects, and approaches 100% in the maximal scenario, 60% in the moderate scenario, and ~20% under the conservative scenario. shapefiles: [6] Great Western Woodlands boundary, [7] sample areas (layer file shows sample areas by category).