Darling River Snail Predicted Distribution in New South Wales

Records from 1994 onward inform a predicted current distribution model for the critically endangered Darling River Snail. The dataset was produced by the NSW Department of Primary Industries using the MaxEnt 3.3.3 species distribution model and environmental data from the Australian Hydrological Geospatial Fabric V2 and River Styles®. It is provided by the Department of Primary Industries and Regional Development (DPIRD) and was last updated in May 2026.

Use Cases

• Modeling habitat suitability for freshwater species based on geospatial stream network data.
• Assessing the impact of river flow management and weir construction on species decline.
• Informing conservation planning for critically endangered species using predicted distribution maps.
• Integrating species records with environmental attributes like stream planform and substratum for ecological analysis.

Strengths

• Model incorporates 30 stream variables and 65 River Styles® categories.
• Data is based on records assessed for accuracy and limited to those after January 1, 1994.
• Uses a fully connected and directed national stream network (Australian Hydrological Geospatial Fabric V2).

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.
• Data may reflect geographic bias inherent to data_gov_au, focusing on NSW irrigation pipelines where recent specimens were found.

Provenance

Source

Department of Primary Industries and Regional Development (DPIRD)

Collection Method

Species distribution modeling (MaxEnt 3.3.3) applied to collated species records and environmental attributes from the National Environmental Stream Attributes Database and River Styles®.

Time Range

Records from 1994 onward

Freshness

Last updated 2026-05-13 02:59:07.746615; freshness should be verified.

Geography

New South Wales, Australia, specifically the Darling River catchment and southern NSW irrigation pipelines.