Identification

Field	Value
Title	Ecological carrying capacity of terrestrial habitat
Abstract	This Indicator accounts for how the generalised quality of terrestrial habitats supporting biodiversity at each location and its connection with habitat at other locations within a neighbourhood enables biological movement such as foraging, dispersal and migration. It is used to account for the carrying capacity of a landscape to support its original complement of biodiversity and ecosystems. This indicator (3.1c) is part of a family of measures on the condition and connectivity of habitat, including its capacity to support the needs of native plants, animals and ecosystems in NSW, as a proportion relative to that in the pre-industrial era. Ecological condition and ecological carrying capacity are used to estimate the ‘state of biodiversity including undiscovered species’ and ecological condition is used to estimate ‘expected survival of all known and undiscovered species’ is one of a series of indicators on the status of biodiversity and ecological integrity in NSW developed to contribute to assessing the performance of the Biodiversity Conservation Act 2016. The overarching indicator framework which outlines how indicators are related and derived is presented in the “method to assess biodiversity and ecological integrity across New South Wales” (OEH, 2018).
Resource locator
Data Quality Statement	Name: Data Quality Statement Protocol: WWW:DOWNLOAD-1.0-http--download Description: Data quality statement for Ecological carrying capacity of terrestrial native vegetation indicator Function: download
Download Package	Name: Download Package Protocol: WWW:DOWNLOAD-1.0-http--download Description: Raster Data (TIFF) Function: download
Unique resource identifier
Code	3e90e34d-7423-4932-bb7c-625ff1ec9074
Presentation form	Document digital
Edition	1
Dataset language	English
Metadata standard
Name	ISO 19115
Edition	2016
Dataset URI	https://datasets.seed.nsw.gov.au/dataset/3e90e34d-7423-4932-bb7c-625ff1ec9074
Purpose	Legislative and regulatory requirements
Status	Completed
Spatial representation type	grid
Spatial reference system
Code identifying the spatial reference system	4283
Spatial resolution	90 m
Additional information source	Love, J., Drielsma, M. J., Williams, K., Thapa, R., (2018) Data package for habitat condition indicators; 3.1a ecological condition, 3.1b ecological connectivity and 3.1c ecological carrying capacity. Biodiversity Indicator Program, NSW Office of Environment and Heritage, Sydney. OEH (2018). A Method to Assess Biodiversity and Ecological Integrity across New South Wales. NSW Office of Environment and Heritage, Sydney. Love, J., Drielsma, M. J., Williams, K., Thapa, R., (2018) A new integrated model-data fusion approach to measuring ecosystem quality for ecological integrity reporting. Biodiversity Indicator Program Implementation Report Series, NSW Office of Environment and Heritage, Sydney.

Classification of spatial data and services

Field	Value
Topic category

Keywords

Field	Value
Keyword set
keyword value	ECOLOGY-Landscape VEGETATION FLORA-Native
Originating controlled vocabulary
Title	ANZLIC Search Words
Reference date	2008-05-16
Geographic location
West bounding longitude	140.800781
East bounding longitude	153.720703
North bounding latitude	-37.160317
South bounding latitude	-28.188244
NSW Place Name	NSW
Vertical extent information
Minimum value	-100
Maximum value	2228
Coordinate reference system
Authority code	urn:ogc:def:cs:EPSG::
Code identifying the coordinate reference system	5711
Temporal extent
Begin position	1995-01-01
End position	N/A
Dataset reference date
Resource maintenance
Maintenance and update frequency	As needed
Contact info
Contact position	Data Broker
Organisation name	NSW Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water
Telephone number	131555
Email address	data.broker@environment.nsw.gov.au
Web address	https://www.nsw.gov.au/departments-and-agencies/dcceew
Responsible party role	pointOfContact

Quality and validity

Field	Value
Lineage	Ecological carrying capacity (Biodiversity Indicator Program, Indicator 3.1c) is a measure of colonisation potential (Hanski 1999) that uses spatial context analysis to build on ecological condition by integrating condition at each location with its connectivity to habitat in a surrounding neighbourhood. Spatial context analysis is performed using a similar least cost paths algorithm to that described above for ecological connectivity, with differences in how the accumulated values are assigned to the output grid. Where ecological connectivity values are determined at each grid cell from the accumulation of permeabilities of each traversing path, context analysis accumulates path values at their source by treating each cell as a focal cell from which paths originate. In this way, a measure of how well connected each cell is to its surrounding habitat is derived without requiring the paths between locations to be specifically mapped. Conceptually, the underlying algorithm for 3.1b and 3.1c are identical apart from parameterisation, and through planned refinements will be fully integrated into a single process. Spatial context measures Neighbourhood Habitat Area (NHA) using the concept of colonisation potential (Hanski 1999, Drielsma & Ferrier 2009) and uses the Cost Benefit Approach (CBA) (Drielsma et al., 2007b) to model the amount of habitat accessible from, or connected to, each location. CBA, like the Spatial Links approach, is an adaptation of Dijkstra’s Least Cost Path (LCP) graph search algorithm (Dijkstra 1959; Cormen et al., 2001) used to solve Single-Source Shortest Path (SSSP) trees over rasterised spatial data. CBA is used to simulate generalised ecological processes including foraging, dispersal (of both flora and fauna) and migration across continuous valued rasterised representations of complex landscapes. Various sampling strategies are used to emulate entity properties such as habitat preferences, resource requirements, movement abilities and home range to propagule dispersal operating scales. To reflect the continuous and evolving nature of ecological processes, and account for indirect influences of change in other parts of the landscape, CBA is performed repeatedly with the habitat input of successive iterations moderated by the previous measure of NHA. To derive ecological carrying capacity, CBA is applied using generalised parameters and spatial inputs scaled to multiple spatial resolutions that, like ecological connectivity, account for processes operating across a range of ecological scales. As with ecological connectivity, spatial inputs for ecological carrying capacity are sampled using multiple pixel offsets at each scale to account for the loss of detail that occurs when aggregating raster grids up to coarser resolutions. CBA is applied independently for each spatial resolution and at each sampled offset over several iterations where the habitat input of each is tempered by the output of the last. Once derived, the final NHA grids are resampled back to the original finest resolution before being additively combined. The results of each resolution are equally weighted to moderate the contribution of each scale then added together with an equally weighted contribution from ecological condition resulting in a single spatial product measuring ecological carrying capacity representative of multiple ecological scales, at each 90 by 90 metre grid cell across the State. For more information and identification of the data used in the indicator refer to the work flow and implementation report in the data package.

Field

Value

Lineage

Ecological carrying capacity (Biodiversity Indicator Program, Indicator 3.1c) is a measure of colonisation potential (Hanski 1999) that uses spatial context analysis to build on ecological condition by integrating condition at each location with its connectivity to habitat in a surrounding neighbourhood. Spatial context analysis is performed using a similar least cost paths algorithm to that described above for ecological connectivity, with differences in how the accumulated values are assigned to the output grid. Where ecological connectivity values are determined at each grid cell from the accumulation of permeabilities of each traversing path, context analysis accumulates path values at their source by treating each cell as a focal cell from which paths originate. In this way, a measure of how well connected each cell is to its surrounding habitat is derived without requiring the paths between locations to be specifically mapped. Conceptually, the underlying algorithm for 3.1b and 3.1c are identical apart from parameterisation, and through planned refinements will be fully integrated into a single process.

Spatial context measures Neighbourhood Habitat Area (NHA) using the concept of colonisation potential (Hanski 1999, Drielsma & Ferrier 2009) and uses the Cost Benefit Approach (CBA) (Drielsma et al., 2007b) to model the amount of habitat accessible from, or connected to, each location. CBA, like the Spatial Links approach, is an adaptation of Dijkstra’s Least Cost Path (LCP) graph search algorithm (Dijkstra 1959; Cormen et al., 2001) used to solve Single-Source Shortest Path (SSSP) trees over rasterised spatial data. CBA is used to simulate generalised ecological processes including foraging, dispersal (of both flora and fauna) and migration across continuous valued rasterised representations of complex landscapes. Various sampling strategies are used to emulate entity properties such as habitat preferences, resource requirements, movement abilities and home range to propagule dispersal operating scales. To reflect the continuous and evolving nature of ecological processes, and account for indirect influences of change in other parts of the landscape, CBA is performed repeatedly with the habitat input of successive iterations moderated by the previous measure of NHA.

To derive ecological carrying capacity, CBA is applied using generalised parameters and spatial inputs scaled to multiple spatial resolutions that, like ecological connectivity, account for processes operating across a range of ecological scales. As with ecological connectivity, spatial inputs for ecological carrying capacity are sampled using multiple pixel offsets at each scale to account for the loss of detail that occurs when aggregating raster grids up to coarser resolutions. CBA is applied independently for each spatial resolution and at each sampled offset over several iterations where the habitat input of each is tempered by the output of the last. Once derived, the final NHA grids are resampled back to the

original finest resolution before being additively combined. The results of each resolution are equally weighted to moderate the contribution of each scale then added together with an equally weighted contribution from ecological condition resulting in a single spatial product measuring ecological carrying capacity representative of multiple ecological scales, at each 90 by 90 metre grid cell across the State. For more information and identification of the data used in the indicator refer to the work flow and implementation report in the data package.

Constraints related to access and use

Field	Value
Limitations on public access

Responsible organisations

Field	Value
Responsible party
Contact position	Data Broker
Organisation name	NSW Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water
Telephone number	131555
Email address	data.broker@environment.nsw.gov.au
Web address	https://www.nsw.gov.au/departments-and-agencies/dcceew
Responsible party role	pointOfContact

Metadata on metadata

Field	Value
Metadata point of contact
Contact position	Data Broker
Organisation name	NSW Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water
Telephone number	131555
Email address	data.broker@environment.nsw.gov.au
Web address	https://www.nsw.gov.au/departments-and-agencies/dcceew
Responsible party role	pointOfContact
Metadata date	2024-02-26T13:11:12.861905
Metadata language

Identification

Title

Abstract

Resource locator

Data Quality Statement

Download Package

Unique resource identifier

Code

Presentation form

Edition

Dataset language

Metadata standard

Name

Edition

Dataset URI

Purpose

Status

Spatial representation type

Spatial reference system

Code identifying the spatial reference system

Spatial resolution

Additional information source

Classification of spatial data and services

Topic category

Keywords

Keyword set

keyword value

Originating controlled vocabulary

Title

Reference date

Geographic location

West bounding longitude

East bounding longitude

North bounding latitude

South bounding latitude

NSW Place Name

Vertical extent information

Minimum value

Maximum value

Coordinate reference system

Authority code

Code identifying the coordinate reference system

Temporal extent

Begin position

End position

Dataset reference date

Resource maintenance

Maintenance and update frequency

Contact info

Contact position

Organisation name

Telephone number

Email address

Web address

https://www.nsw.gov.au/departments-and-agencies/dcceew

Responsible party role

Quality and validity

Lineage

Constraints related to access and use

Limitations on public access

Responsible organisations

Responsible party

Contact position

Organisation name

Telephone number

Email address

Web address

https://www.nsw.gov.au/departments-and-agencies/dcceew

Responsible party role

Metadata on metadata

Metadata point of contact

Contact position

Organisation name

Telephone number

Email address

Web address

https://www.nsw.gov.au/departments-and-agencies/dcceew

Responsible party role

Metadata date

Metadata language