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Prioritising threatened species and threatening processes across northern Australia: dataset

Northern Australia’s unique and rich biodiversity faces numerous threatening processes. Currently, there is limited knowledge of i) the distribution of species of conservation concern across northern Australia, ii) their level of exposure to various threats and iii) their vulnerability as a result of exposure and differential sensitivity to threats. These knowledge gaps severely limit the efficiency and adequacy of conservation actions and simultaneously create uncertainty for sustainable development in the North. This project aimed to fill these knowledge gaps by creating spatially explicit data that can be used to inform species conservation policy, assessments of species’ conservation status and decision-making about threat mitigation and management. The data can also be used to guide where further research may be needed about species of conservation concern, as part of regional planning processes governing land-use and water resources in northern Australia. The user guide has been prepared to assist stakeholders with the appropriate use of data created for the National Environmental Science Program (NESP) Northern Australia Environmental Resources (NAER) Hub, through Project 3.3 Prioritising threatened species and threatening processes across northern Australia.

The project has generated the following data sets:

1. High-resolution maps of the distributions of >1,400 ‘species of conservation concern’,i.e. rare, range-restricted, threatened or near threatened species or populations of plants and animals that occupy terrestrial or freshwater ecosystems, developed based on habitat suitability models and expert knowledge;

2. Hotspot maps that show concentrations, or richness, of species of conservation concern for different taxonomic groups;

3. Maps of the key threatening processes that impact northern Australian biodiversity; and

4. Maps of vulnerability: These combine maps of species of conservation concern distributions with maps of threatening processes and information on how sensitive the species are to those threats. The resulting maps identify areas of high vulnerability – areas, where species of conservation concern coincide with significant threats and thus should be considered for targeted management.

The user guide briefly describes the rationale for, and data files associated with, all four data sets described above. It also provides practical guidance on appropriate interpretation of the data, as well as important methodological caveats and limitations. It does not replace the need for ground-truthing, regional and site-based ecological surveys and/or taxa-specific research, but can help frame where this survey effort might occur and for which species.
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    Data Record Details
    Data record related to this publication Prioritising threatened species and threatening processes across northern Australia Dataset
    Data Publication title Prioritising threatened species and threatening processes across northern Australia: dataset
  • Description

    Northern Australia’s unique and rich biodiversity faces numerous threatening processes. Currently, there is limited knowledge of i) the distribution of species of conservation concern across northern Australia, ii) their level of exposure to various threats and iii) their vulnerability as a result of exposure and differential sensitivity to threats. These knowledge gaps severely limit the efficiency and adequacy of conservation actions and simultaneously create uncertainty for sustainable development in the North. This project aimed to fill these knowledge gaps by creating spatially explicit data that can be used to inform species conservation policy, assessments of species’ conservation status and decision-making about threat mitigation and management. The data can also be used to guide where further research may be needed about species of conservation concern, as part of regional planning processes governing land-use and water resources in northern Australia. The user guide has been prepared to assist stakeholders with the appropriate use of data created for the National Environmental Science Program (NESP) Northern Australia Environmental Resources (NAER) Hub, through Project 3.3 Prioritising threatened species and threatening processes across northern Australia.

    The project has generated the following data sets:

    1. High-resolution maps of the distributions of >1,400 ‘species of conservation concern’,i.e. rare, range-restricted, threatened or near threatened species or populations of plants and animals that occupy terrestrial or freshwater ecosystems, developed based on habitat suitability models and expert knowledge;

    2. Hotspot maps that show concentrations, or richness, of species of conservation concern for different taxonomic groups;

    3. Maps of the key threatening processes that impact northern Australian biodiversity; and

    4. Maps of vulnerability: These combine maps of species of conservation concern distributions with maps of threatening processes and information on how sensitive the species are to those threats. The resulting maps identify areas of high vulnerability – areas, where species of conservation concern coincide with significant threats and thus should be considered for targeted management.

    The user guide briefly describes the rationale for, and data files associated with, all four data sets described above. It also provides practical guidance on appropriate interpretation of the data, as well as important methodological caveats and limitations. It does not replace the need for ground-truthing, regional and site-based ecological surveys and/or taxa-specific research, but can help frame where this survey effort might occur and for which species.

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  • Other Descriptors
    • Descriptor
      • Descriptor type
    • Data type dataset
  • Keywords
    • NESP
    • spatial planning
    • species
    • biodiversity
    • mammals
    • birds
    • amphibians
    • reptiles
    • fish
    • snails
    • insects
    • plants
    • land-use change
    • land-use water
    • water planning
    • development
    • threats
    • fire
    • agriculture
    • mining
    • farming
    • grazing
    • dams
    • conservation
    • plannning
    • natural resource management
    • Western Australia
    • Northern Australia
    • Northern Territory
    • Queensland
  • Funding source
    • National Environmental Research Program
  • Research grant(s)/Scheme name(s)
    • - Australian National Environmental Science Program (NESP)
    • - Northern Australian Environmental Resources Hub (NAER)
    • Research themes
    Tropical Ecosystems, Conservation and Climate Change
    FoR Codes (*)
    SEO Codes
- Specify coverage
    Specify spatial or temporal setting of the data
    Temporal (time) coverage
  • Start Date
  • End Date
    • Time Period
    Spatial (location) coverage
  • Locations
    • Northern Territory, Australia
    • Queensland, Australia
    • Western Australia
    • Northern Australia
- Data
    Data Locations

    Type Location Notes
    Physical Location QCIF Collection Q0634 Raw data files
    Physical Location QCIF Colllection Q0124 3 zipped folders, suitable for sharing
    The Data Manager is: Anna Pintor
    College or Centre eResearch Centre
    Access conditions Conditional: Contact researchdata@jcu.edu.au to request access to this data.
  • Alternative access conditions Access to some data is restricted due to the sensitive nature of some of the information. Please refer to the User Guide (available from the Related website) which outlines which data is private and why. You can request access to any of the full data sets. Please contact the Research Data JCU team by email with a detailed description of the data you are requesting. Please note that some restricted data requires approval from the relevant state, territory or federal government agencies.
    • Data record size 6.788 TiB
- Related resources
  • Related publications
      Name Canham, Caroline A., Beesley, Leah S., Gwinnn, Daniel C., Douglas, Michael M., Setterfield, Samantha A., Freestone, Fiona L., Pusey, Bradley J., and Loomes, Robyn C. (2021). Predicting the occurrence of riparian woody species to inform environmental water policies in an Australian tropical river. Freshwater Biology, 66 (12). pp. 2251– 2263.
    • URL https://doi.org/10.1111/fwb.13829
    • Notes
      • Name Pintor, Anna F.V., Ray, Nicolas, Longbottom, Joshua, Bravo-Vega, Carlos A., Yousefi, Masoud, Murray, Kris A., Ediriweera, Dileepa S., and Diggle, Peter J. (2021) Addressing the global snakebite crisis with geo-spatial analyses – Recent advances and future direction. Toxicon: X, 11. 100076.
    • URL https://doi.org/10.1016/j.toxcx.2021.100076
    • Notes Open Access
      • Name Álvarez-Romero, Jorge, Kiatkoski Kim, Milena, Buissereth, Rachel, Pressey, Robert L., Panell, David, Douglas, Michael M., and Spencer-Cotton, Alaya (2021) Looking back to look forward: a timeline of the Fitzroy River catchment. Report to the Australian Department of Agriculture, Water and the Environment. Report. James Cook University, Townsville, QLD, Australia.
    • URL https://doi.org/10.25903/hq6b-kk36
    • Notes Open Access
      • Name Álvarez-Romero, Jorge G., Kiatkoski Kim, Milena, Pannell, David, Douglas, Michael M., Wallace, Ken, Hill, Rosemary, Adams, Vanessa M., Spencer-Cotton, Alaya, Kennard, Mark, and Pressey, Robert L. (2021) Multi-objective planning in northern Australia: co-benefits and trade-offs between environmental, economic, and cultural outcomes. Final report to the Australian Department of Agriculture, Water and the Environment. Report. James Cook University, Townsville, Queensland.
    • URL https://doi.org/10.25903/p324-m141du.au/65320/
    • Notes Open Access
  • Related websites
  • Related metadata (including standards, codebooks, vocabularies, thesauri, ontologies)
      Name
    • URL
    • Notes
  • Related data
      Name
    • URL
    • Notes
  • Related services
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    • Notes
- License
    Select or add a licence for the data
    The data will be licensed under CC BY 4.0: Attribution 4.0 International
  • Other Licence
    • Statement of rights in data Once access to the data has been obtained via negotiation with the Data Manager, use of the dataset is governed by the CC BY 4.0 licence.
  • Data owners
      James Cook University
- Citation
    Citation Pintor, Anna; Kennard, Mark; Alvarez-Romero, Jorge; Hernandez, Stephanie; VanDerWal, Jeremy (2022): Prioritising threatened species and threatening processes across northern Australia: dataset. James Cook University. https://doi.org/10.25903/f67h-k245