ASDST Grinding Grooves Pre1750 Model: Predictive Likelihood of Aboriginal Sites in NSW

The ASDST Grinding Grooves Pre1750 Model is a raster GIS layer predicting the likelihood of Aboriginal grinding groove features in New South Wales, Australia, prior to European colonization. It was produced by the NSW Department of Planning, Industry and Environment in 2020 as part of the Aboriginal Sites Decision Support Tool. The model covers the entire state at a 50-meter resolution, with cell values ranging from 0 to 1000 indicating relative likelihood.

Use Cases

• Assess landscape planning risks for Aboriginal heritage based on predicted feature likelihood.
• Identify areas of high cultural sensitivity for grinding grooves based on the pre-1750 model.
• Compare pre-colonial and current landscape predictions to understand accumulated impacts.
• Prioritize field survey locations using the survey priority map derived from model reliability.

Strengths

• Model covers the full extent of New South Wales at a 50-meter resolution.
• Cell values provide a standardized 0-1000 scale for relative likelihood comparison.
• Part of a structured suite of models for ten distinct Aboriginal site feature types.

Limitations

• Description metadata is limited; actual data quality requires manual inspection after download.
• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.

Provenance

Source

NSW Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water

Collection Method

Derived from the Aboriginal Heritage Information Management System (AHIMS) using predictive modeling.

Time Range

Pre-1750 (pre-colonial) predictive model.

Freshness

Last updated 2026-05-12 16:31:01.666384; freshness should be verified.

Geography

New South Wales, Australia.