ACT Vegetation Map with 64 Plant Community Classifications

64 plant communities are classified across the Australian Capital Territory at a 1:10,000 scale. The map includes attributes like canopy cover percentage, dominant species, and conservation statuses, produced by the Office of Nature Conservation in 2023.

Use Cases

• Analyze the distribution of actConservationStatus and epbcConservationStatus across different Keith Class formations.
• Model relationships between canopyCover, height_mean, and underCover derived from 2020 LiDAR to predict vegetation structure.
• Assess the area (hectares) of polygons classified as threatened ecological communities (tecACT, tecEPBC) for conservation planning.
• Identify dominant species composition by examining treesp1-3, shrubsp1-3, and groundsp1-3 columns within each vegCommunity.

Strengths

• Classifies vegetation into 64 distinct plant communities.
• Integrates 2020 LiDAR-derived metrics for canopyCover, height_mean, and underCover.
• Includes dual conservation statuses from both ACT (actConservationStatus) and federal (epbcConservationStatus) legislation.

Limitations

• Threatened community listings (tecACT, tecEPBC) may require field verification, indicating potential label uncertainty.
• Data is provided in HTML format, which is non-standard for spatial analysis and requires conversion for GIS use.
• The temporal coverage is a single snapshot from 2023, limiting longitudinal change analysis.

Provenance

Source

ONC Maps and Data | Office of Nature Conservation, ACT Government Open Data

Collection Method

Vegetation classification at 1:10,000 scale, incorporating field data and 2020 LiDAR models.

Time Range

2023

Freshness

2023

Geography

Australian Capital Territory, Australia