Groundwater Housing Risk Factors for the Greater Metropolitan Region

Six groundwater-related risk factors—acid sulphate soils, contaminated sites, groundwater works, water features, groundwater dependent ecosystems, and groundwater systems—are combined into an overall risk layer for building developments. This dataset supports the Housing Approvals Reform Action Plan in meeting housing targets across the Greater Metropolitan Region of New South Wales, Australia. It was created by the NSW Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water and is accompanied by a detailed method report.

Use Cases

• Assessing site suitability for new housing based on combined groundwater risk layers.
• Identifying areas requiring environmental protection measures due to groundwater works risk.
• Prioritizing planning applications based on acid sulphate soils risk and contaminated sites risk.
• Evaluating potential impacts on groundwater dependent ecosystems before development approval.

Strengths

• Integrates six distinct groundwater risk input layers into a synthesized overall risk dataset.
• Explicitly supports a specific government policy, the Housing Approvals Reform Action Plan.
• Includes a detailed method report explaining the context and analysis of the subordinate layers.

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Row count and spatial resolution are unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.
• Data may reflect geographic bias inherent to data_gov_au, focusing on the Greater Metropolitan Region.

Provenance

Source

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

Collection Method

Risk layers derived from environmental and geological data, combined into an overall risk assessment.

Freshness

Last updated 2026-05-13 03:55:34.586542; freshness should be verified.

Geography

Greater Metropolitan Region, New South Wales, Australia