NSW Land Use 2017: Statewide Mapping of Agriculture, Forestry, and Urban Development

NSW Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water produced this land use dataset capturing how the New South Wales landscape was used for food production, forestry, nature conservation, infrastructure, and urban development in September 2017. Version 1.5, published in December 2023, incorporates fine-scale mapping for regions like the Central Coast and Illawarra, enhanced horticulture data, and an updated road network. The mapping is based on aerial and satellite imagery, ancillary datasets like cadastre and land zoning, and was captured using GIS software at a scale of 1:8,000 or better.

Use Cases

• Monitor changes in land use and landscape patterns based on statewide coverage and temporal mapping.
• Identify impacts on biodiversity values and individual ecosystems based on land use classification.
• Analyze urban development and infrastructure expansion based on fine-scale mapping of regional centres.
• Map and study horticulture commodities and plantation types based on integrated data from the Australian Tree Crop Map Dashboard.
• Assess road network coverage and its land footprint based on standardized buffering of Transport NSW centreline data.

Strengths

• Complete coverage of New South Wales.
• Features mapped down to 2 hectares in size, with finer scale for targeted classes like horticulture and urban environments.
• Incorporates multiple data sources including aerial imagery (ADS), satellite imagery (SPOT, Sentinel 2, LANDSAT), and commercial imagery (Nearmap, Google Earth).
• Includes field validation of patterns and features on the ground.

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.
• Data is based on a snapshot from September 2017; current conditions may differ.

Provenance

Source

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

Collection Method

Captured on screen using ARC GIS software based on aerial/satellite imagery and ancillary datasets, with visual interpretation and field validation.

Time Range

September 2017

Freshness

Last updated 2026-05-13 05:10:47.925217; freshness should be verified.

Geography

New South Wales, Australia