New South Wales Vegetation Classification & Assessment Database Project (NSWVCA)

Dr John Benson - Senior Ecologist, Dr Chris Allen - Senior Technical Officer and Ms Sally Waller - Project Officer

Senior Plant Ecologist John Benson instigated the NSWVCA database project in 1999 to meet an increasing demand for a fine-level ecological classification covering NSW for environmental assessment and ecosystem management. The NSWVCA is classifying the vegetation of NSW into plant communities based on the best existing data and extensive field checking. So far over 400 are classified but it is anticipated that about 1400 will be in the final list. The first two papers of the NSWVCA were published in 2006. These covered methodologies and the classification and assessment of 213 plant communities in the Western Plains. During 2007 and 2008 work was completed on the 8 million hectare Southwestern Slopes Bioregion that abuts the Western Plains. It is the most degraded of the 18 bioregions in NSW. This new work adds 97 extra plant communities to the NSWVCA database. It will be published as Version 2 of the NSWVCA database in late 2008.  Considerable field work has been undertaken on the North Western slopes in preparation for an eventual Version 3 of the NSWVCA database that will cover another 8 million hectares of NSW and complete the NSWVCA for the Border Rivers / Gwydir and Namoi CMA areas that run westwards off the Great Dividing Range. John Benson with NSWVCA Project Officer Sally Waller are covering the 5 million hectare Brigalow Belt South Bioregion that includes an array of ironbark and other forests from Queensland to Dubbo including the Pilliga Scrub and the Warrumbungles regions. All existing vegetation data are being collated including for conservation reserves. To assist in extending the NSWVCA over the North-Western slopes, a contract was let to ecological consultants to produce a vegetation classification and assessment of the 3.5 million hectare Nandewar Bioregion and western half of the New England Bioregion. This produced 104 plant communities that have been entered into the NSWVCA database.

Development of Ecosystem Risk Assessment Criteria for the World Conservation Union (IUCN)

A spin-off from the NSWVCA research has been the development of risk assessment criteria for assessing the threat status of plant communities. Six risk assessment criteria are described in the NSWVCA publications. These grade each plant community into IUCN threat categories Critically Endangered, Endangered, Vulnerable, Near threatened or Least Concern. Other researchers around the world have developed similar criteria over recent years for different types of ecosystem classifications. However, there is no world-wide accepted quantitative standard. In March 2008, John Benson attended an inaugural meeting of researchers to discuss developing quantitative criteria on ecosystem risk assessment for adoption by IUCN. This was held in London. Later in 2008 John Benson gave presentations on this topic at the IUCN World Conservation Congress in Spain. IUCN have since passed a motion to develop ecosystem risk criteria over the coming years and this will involve John’s input on an ad hoc basis.

About the project

A standard vegetation classification of the 80 million hectare State of New South Wales, Australia is required to assist with environmental assessment and ecosystem management under environmental laws and regulations. The aim of the NSWVCA project is to classify and assess the threat and protected area status of the native vegetation of NSW (Benson 2006). A brief overview of the vegetation in NSW is provided in the Setting the Scene PDF paper on this website (Benson 1999). An overview of NSW vegetation is provided in the book From ocean shores to desert dunes by Keith (2004). Each plant community described in the NSWVCA database is cross-referenced to the broad 'Formation Groups' in the book The Vegetation of Australia by Beadle (1981) and to the 99 broad Vegetation Classes described in Keith (2004).

Descriptions of each NSWVCA classified plant community are provided on the NSWVCA database bio-information system that is being published as new versions as the project progresses from western to eastern NSW. A copy of a read-only version of the NSWVCA database is provided on a CD in the back pocket of the journal publications and can be obtained by land mail from the NSWVCA Manager, Ecology Section, Botanic Gardens Trust, Mrs Macquaries Road, Sydney NSW 2000.

The NSWVCA project mirrors the National Vegetation Classification of the United States (Jennings et al. 2006) that was initiated by The Nature Conservancy (Grossman et al. 1998).

It is anticipated that when all of the vegetation in NSW is classified in the NSWVCA project between 1200 and 1500 plant communities will be classified, described and assessed. To date, 315 plant communities have been published covering nine of the 18 bioregions in NSW. These are all inland bioregions. Work is ongoing to describe about another 200 plant communities in the NSW north western slopes and west New England regions.

The 2006 Version 1 of the NSWVCA classified and assessed 213 plant communities in the eight bioregions that comprise the NSW Western Plains (Benson et al. 2006). This section of NSW covers 45 million hectares or 57% of the geographical area of NSW (albeit simpler in vegetation complexity compared to eastern NSW). The 2008 Version 2 of the NSWVCA includes an extra 97 plant communities from the 8 million hectare NSW South-western Slopes Bioregion (Benson 2008) and updates data on the NSW Western Plains plant communities after feedback on Version 1. Work is continuing on the NSW North Western Slopes - west New England regions (another 8 million hectares). Future work hopes to complete coverage of the eight western Catchment Management Authorities in NSW by covering the Australian Alps and South-East Highland Bioregions (see the attached NSWVCA progress figure). NSWVCA coverage of the complex NSW coastal vegetation may commence over coming years by a range of contributors with BGT supervision and assistance.

The NSWVCA mainly relies on published and unpublished vegetation type data in developing a fine thematic level State-wide vegetation 'type' vegetation classification. To date (early 2009), over 450 references have been cited in the plant community descriptions. These references are listed in the NSWVCA Bibliography on the CDs associated with the publications. The vegetation data assessed includes spatial data (vegetation maps), associated descriptions of map units, floristic classifications derived from cluster or other analysis of floristic plot data, descriptions of vegetation types in reports and papers and expert advice (see flow diagram). Extensive field checking helps validate and compare disparate information. Quantitative analyses based on adequate sampling of environmental variation are favoured where they are available but sound quantitative data are patchy west of the Great Dividing Range in NSW, whereas these data are more abundant on the coast and eastern tablelands. The classification aims to list plant communities at the 'plant association' level that takes into account significant canopy and understorey floristic variation.

Each plant community is recorded in an MS Access 2003 database that contains 90 fields of information, 47 Tables and 64 forms. The fields are described in Appendix A in Benson (2006) provided at his web site in the 'Database Description' file. The threat criteria used to assess the risk of each listed plant community are included in Appendix B of Benson (2006) - see the file 'Threat Criteria' on this web site.

The NSWVCA database fields include: lists of characteristic species in three strata, vegetation structure, common name, scientific name, general description, photographs, references that form a basis of the classification or assessment, distribution by bioregions, local government area and other regions, soils and substrate, list of threatening processes, comments on condition, fire regimes if known, a IUCN-like threat code using criteria about remaining extent and condition, a protected area code based on relative extent protected in reserves or secure property agreements.

The NSWVCA database contains 20 reports for listing plant communities by geographical regions or under broader vegetation classifications. PDF reports contain images while MS Word reports contain text only. The query mode in the full version of the database facilitates a range of queries of combinations of the 90 fields in the database.

Results are being published in refereed papers and placed on this web site to attract use and feedback of the NSWVCA scheme. Major changes to the classification are published on this web site

The results of this project are pertinent to:

• site assessment for property planning and environmental impact assessment
• setting priorities in regional planning
• a basis for mapping vegetation
• selecting new conservation reserves and private property conservation agreements
• monitoring progress in protecting biodiversity
• managing different types of vegetation
• public education about the vegetation of NSW

   An overview of the vegetation of NSW can be gleaned from ‘Setting the Scene: the native vegetation of New South Wales’ (859 Kb pdf file)

Progress of the NSW Vegetation Classification and Assessment Project (NSWVCA) December 2008

Three papers on the NSWVCA have been published in the Botanic Gardens Trust, Sydney ecological journal Cunninghamia. PDFs of these papers are attached to this web site broken into sections for downloading (due to the large size of the papers). The actual NSWVCA database cannot be downloaded from this website. It is available by land mail from the Ecology Section Botanic Gardens Trust, Sydney on a CD or DVD that also contains PDF reports of plant communities in various regions of NSW.

Paper 1 Introduction to the NSWVCA classification and database

Paper 1 (Benson 2006) was published in Cunninghamia Volume 9(3) in June 2006. It summarises vegetation classification and mapping internationally, in Australia and in New South Wales. It describes the NSWVCA’s scope and methods, the NSWVCA database fields and reports, the NSWVCA threat criteria used to assess the threat status of each plant community into IUCN-like threat categories and the protected area threshold rules used to assess the protected area status of each plant community. A number of maps show planning and administrative regions in NSW are included in this publication.

Paper 2 The plant communities of the NSW Western Plains and Version 1 of the NSWVCA database

The second NSWVCA paper (Benson et al. 2006) published in Cunninghamia Volume 9(3) in June 2006, describes 213 plant communities of the NSW Western Plains, a geographical area covering 57% of NSW including the semi-arid and arid regions of the State (see the image of NSW divided into four sections). This section of NSW is defined by eight IBRA Bioregions defined in version 6 of Thackway & Cresswell (1995).being the Murray-Darling Depression, Riverina, Broken Hill Complex, Cobar Peneplain, Simpson-Strzelecki Dunefields, Channel Country, Mulga Lands and Darling Riverine Plains Bioregions. The section completely covers the Western and Lower Murray-Darling Catchment Management Authority areas and the western parts of six other CMAs running westwards off the Great Dividing Range.

Full descriptions of the 213 plant communities of the NSW Western Plains are included in a document 640 A4 pages long on the CD accompanying Paper 1 (Benson et al. 2006). Other PDF reports from the database covering CMA areas and bioregions are on the CD accompanying the Cunninghamia 9(3) journal publication. The CD also contains a read only version of the NSWVCA NSW Western Plains database that allows the user to generate reports. The publication can be obtained from the Ecology Section, Botanic Gardens Trust, Mrs Macquaries Rd, Sydney NSW 2000, or by emailing NSWVCA@rbgsyd.nsw.gov.au. Note that Version 2 of the NSWVCA database adds six extra plant communities to the NSW Western Plains and updates some other data. So there are now 219 plant communities listed for the Plains.

Paper 3 Version 2 of the NSWVCA database adding the NSW South-western Slopes Bioregion to the NSW Western Plains

The third NSWVCA paper (Benson 2008) published in Cunninghamia 10(4) in December 2008, classifies and describes the vegetation in the NSW South-western Slopes Bioregion which is a mainly cleared and fragmented farming region covering 10% of NSW. In total, 135 plant communities are described for the NSW SWS Bioregion. 97 of these are additions to Version 1 that partly covered the Lower Slopes sub-region of the NSWSWS Bioregion. The description of the 135 plant communities in the NSW South-western Slopes Bioregion is about 400 A4 pages long and is on the CD as part of the publication.

Other notes

• As of December 2008, over 450 references on vegetation have been incorporated into the NSWVCA Bibliography in the NSWVCA database. There has been over 35000 km of field traverse and over 1000 vegetation field checks during which plant species, abiotic features and GPS readings are recorded and photographs taken;
• A collection of about 15000 photographs NSW Western Plains and NSW South-western Slopes Bioregion plant communities has been established at the Botanic Gardens Trust.

Threat and protected area status of plant communities in the NSW Western Plains

• Only 3.9% of the NSW Western Plains is represented in protected areas (public conservation reserves and secure long term property agreements) compared to 14% for the eastern half of NSW.
• Only one of the eight Western Plains Bioregions has greater than 10% of its area in protected areas.
• 31 or 15% of the plant communities are not recorded from protected areas;
• 136 or 64% have less than 5% of their pre-European extent in protected areas.
• Only 52 or 24% of the communities have greater than 10% of their original extent protected, thus meeting international guidelines for representation of ecological communities in protected areas.
• 71 or 33% of the plant communities are threatened, that is, judged as being ‘critically endangered’, ‘endangered’ or ‘vulnerable’.
• This audit of the protected areas in western NSW demonstrates that the current protected area system is inadequate and that more conservation reserves and secure property agreements are required to attain minimum international thresholds for representation of landscapes in protected areas.
• Threatening processes include clearing of woodlands and grasslands in central-western NSW; weed invasion on floodplains; unsustainable grazing by domestic stock and feral animals - particularly by goats on semi-arid and arid rocky ranges and rabbits on sandy rises in the Riverina; water draw off from rivers for irrigation preventing flooding of floodplains and threatening the floodplain communities; localised rises in salinity; and long term impacts of climate change on a range of key native plant species.

Threat and protected area status of the plant communities in the NSW South-western Slopes Bioregion

• 1.9% of the NSW SW Slopes Bioregion is in protected areas;
• 28 of the 135 plant communities were assessed as adequately represented in protected areas;
• Using the NSWVCA threat criteria, 18 plant communities were assessed as Critically Endangered, 33 Endangered, 29 Vulnerable, 25 Near threatened and 30 Least Concern;
• Threatening processes include: impacts of past over-clearing and habitat fragmentation on plant and animal species persistence in small remnants, dominance of exotic plant species in the ground cover of grassy woodlands - often associated with increased nitrogen levels due to fertilizer use, soil erosion on hills, overgrazing of some areas and possibly a lack of regeneration under stress of lower rainfall regimes due to climate change.

Current program

Work is continuing on classifying and assessing the vegetation in the Brigalow Belt South, Nandewar and west New England Bioregions covering 8 million hectares. This should be completed by the end of 2009 and will form the basis for Version 3 of the NSWVCA. It is likely that this will add about 200 plant communities to the Version 2 classification. This would also result in a complete vegetation classification of the Border Rives / Gwydir and Namoi CMA areas. Beyond that, the next priority is to cover the Australian Alps and South East Highlands Bioregions to complete the coverage of the Murray, Murrumbidgee, Lachlan, Central West CMAs.

References

• Beadle, N.C.W. (1981) The vegetation of Australia (Cambridge University Press: Cambridge England).
• Benson, J.S. (2006) New South Wales Vegetation Classification and Assessment: Introduction - the classification, database, assessment of protected areas and threat status of plant communities. Cunninghamia 9(3): 331-382.
• Benson, J.S., Allen, C., Togher, C. & Lemmon, J. (2006) New South Wales Vegetation Classification and Assessment: Part 1 Plant communities of the NSW Western Plains. Cunninghamia 9(3): 383-451.
• Benson, J.S. (2008) New South Wales Vegetation Classification and Assessment: Part 2 Plant communities in the NSW South-western Slopes Bioregion and update of NSW Western Plains plant communities. Version 2 of the NSWVCA database. Cunninghamia 10(4): 599-673.
• Benson, J.S. (1999) Setting the scene: the native vegetation of New South Wales. Background Paper No. 1 (Native Vegetation Advisory Council: Sydney).
• Grossman, D. H., Faber-Langendoen, D., Weakley, A.S., Anderson, M., Bourgeron, P., Crawford, R. , Goodin, K., Landaal, G., Metzler, K., Patterson, K.D., Pyne, M., Reid, M. & Sneddon, L. (1998) International classification of ecological communities: terrestrial vegetation of the United States. Volume I. The National Vegetation Classification System: development, status, and applications (The Nature Conservancy: Arlington,Virginia, USA).
• Jennings, M.D., Faber-Langendoen, D., Peet, R.K., Loucks, O.L., Glenn-Lewin, C., Damman, A., Barbour, M.G., Pfister, R., Grossman, D.H., Roberts, D., Tart, D., Walker, M., Talbot, S.S., Walker, J., Hartshorn, G.S., Waggoner, G., Abrams, M.D., Hill, A. & Rejmanek, M. (2006) Description, documentation and evaluation of associations and alliances within the U.S. National Vegetation Classification. Version 4.5 (Ecological Society of America: Washington).
• Keith, D.A. (2004) From ocean shores to desert dunes: the vegetation of New South Wales and the ACT (Department of Environment and Conservation NSW: Hurstville).

The NSWVCA currently covers the NSW Western Plains and southern half of the NSW Western Slopes - click on map to view enlargement.
The NSW Western Plains is complete.

 NSWVCA Progress of NSW

NSWVCA Flow Diagram

>> Download Benson (2006)Cunninghamia 9(3): 331-382:

• Foreword
• pp. 331-333 (943 KB)
• p. 334 (1.2 MB)
• p. 335 (3 MB)
• p. 336 (1.3 MB)
• pp. 337-381 (609 KB)

>> Download Benson et al. (2006)Cunninghamia 9(3): 383-451:

• pp. 383-385 (1.5 MB)
• pp. 386-391 (2.4 MB)
• pp. 392-419 (1.3 MB)
• pp. 420-430 (568 KB)
• pp. 431-450 (2.1 MB)
• Erratum (25 KB)
• Updated Table 5 (33KB)

>> Download Benson (2008) Cunninghamia 10(4):

• pp. 599-672 (8 MB)

>> View example of Short Report (ID20 Sandhill Buloke Riverina)

>> View example of Full Report (ID156 Bladder Saltbush stony ranges)

>> View changes to NSWVCA from June 2006 onwards

>> View NSWVCA Threat Criteria

>> View NSWVCA Database Description

>> View Poster on 'Prioritising biodiversity conservation action'

Botanic Gardens Trust Senior Ecologist John Benson and Botanic Gardens Trust Photographer Jaime Plaza inspecting vegetation types with a property owner near Narran Lake in north-western NSW. Photo: Sally Waller.