HEVAE Instream Value: High Ecological Value Aquatic Ecosystems in New South Wales

New South Wales data combines four ecological criteria—diversity, distinctiveness, naturalness, and vital habitat—into a standardized score for river reaches. The dataset is produced by the NSW Department of Climate Change, Energy, Environment and Water using the HEVAE framework. The distinctiveness criterion was updated in 2018 with predicted threatened fish species distribution data.

Use Cases

• Identify priority river reaches for conservation based on combined HEVAE scores.
• Analyze spatial patterns of ecological value based on the naturalness, diversity, distinctiveness, and vital habitat criteria.
• Model the impact of threatened fish species distributions on overall ecosystem value, following the 2018 update.
• Standardize and compare ecological value scores across different river catchments in NSW.

Strengths

• Scores are standardized on a 0 to 1 scale, enabling cross-catchment comparison.
• Framework incorporates four distinct ecological criteria, including an update in 2018 for threatened fish data.
• Data is provided via WMS and ArcGIS REST service, facilitating direct geospatial analysis.

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.
• Freshness should be verified; last platform update was 2026-06-26.

Provenance

Source

NSW Department of Climate Change, Energy, Environment and Water (DCCEEW Water)

Collection Method

Calculated by combining four criterion layers for each River Style reach, using the HEVAE framework.

Freshness

Data currency listed as 28/08/2024; update frequency is listed as API.

Geography

New South Wales, Australia