Environmental
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The Historical Bushfire Boundaries service represents the aggregation of jurisdictional supplied burnt areas polygons stemming from the early 1900's through to 2022 (excluding the Northern Territory). The burnt area data represents curated jurisdictional owned polygons of both bushfires and prescribed (planned) burns. To ensure the dataset adhered to the nationally approved and agreed data dictionary for fire history Geoscience Australia had to modify some of the attributes presented. The information provided within this service is reflective only of data supplied by participating authoritative agencies and may or may not represent all fire history within a state.
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These datasets contain legacy data from the decommissioned MapConnect/AMSIS2 application. It contains legacy data for Fisheries, Regulatory, Offshore Minerals and Environment. It is not authoritative and has not been updated since 2006. These datasets contain legacy data found in the Australian Marine Spatial Information System (AMSIS) between 2006 and 2015, with a currency date of 2006. . Users will need to contact the agency responsible for the data to check current validity and spatial precision.
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The Historical Bushfire Boundaries service represents the aggregation of jurisdictional supplied burnt areas polygons stemming from the early 1900's through to 2022 (excluding the Northern Territory). The burnt area data represents curated jurisdictional owned polygons of both bushfires and prescribed (planned) burns. To ensure the dataset adhered to the nationally approved and agreed data dictionary for fire history Geoscience Australia had to modify some of the attributes presented. The information provided within this service is reflective only of data supplied by participating authoritative agencies and may or may not represent all fire history within a state.
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Wind multipliers are factors that transform regional wind speeds into local wind speeds, accounting for the local effects which include topographical, terrain and shielding influences. Wind multipliers have been successfully utilized in various wind related activities such as wind hazard assessment (engineering building code applications), event-based wind impact assessments (tropical cyclones), and also national scale wind risk assessment. The work of McArthur in developing the Forest Fire Danger Index (FFDI: Luke and McArthur, 1978) indicates that the contribution of wind speed to the FFDI is about 45% of the magnitude, indicating the importance of determining an accurate local wind speed in bushfire hazard and spread calculations. For bushfire spread modeling, local site variation (@ 100 metre and also 25 metre horizontal resolution) have been considered through the use of wind multipliers, and this has resulted in a significant difference to the currently utilized regional '10 metre height' wind speed (and further to the impact analysis). A series of wind multipliers have been developed for three historic bushfire case study areas; the 2009 Victorian fires (Kilmore fire), the 2005 Wangary fire (Eyre Peninsula), and the 2001 Warragamba - Mt. Hall fire (Western Sydney). This paper describes the development of wind multiplier computation methodology and the application of wind multipliers to bushfire hazard and impact analysis. The efficacy of using wind multipliers within a bushfire spread hazard model is evaluated by considering case study comparisons of fire extent, shape and impact against post-disaster impact assessments. The analysis has determined that it is important to consider wind multipliers for local wind speed determination in order to achieve reliable fire spread and impact results. From AMSA 2013 conference
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Imagine you are an incident controller viewing a computer screen which depicts the likely spread of a bushfire that's just started. The display shows houses and other structures in the fire's path, and even the demographics of the people living in the area, such as the number of people, their age spread, whether households have independent transport, and whether English is their second language. In addition, imagine that you can quantify and display the uncertainty in both the fire weather and also the type and state of the vegetation, visualising the sensitivity of the expected fire spread and impact to these uncertainties. It will be possible to consider 'what if' scenarios as the event unfolds, and reject those scenarios that are no longer plausible. The advantages of such a simulation system in making speedy, well-informed decisions has been considered by a group of Bushfire CRC researchers who have collaborated to produce a 'proof of concept' for such a system, demonstrated initially on three case studies. The 'proof of concept' system has the working name FireDST (Fire Impact and Risk Evaluation Decision Support Tool). FireDST links various databases and models, including the Phoenix RapidFire fire prediction model and building vulnerability assessment models, as well as infrastructure and demographic databases. The information is assembled into an integrated simulation framework through a geographical information system (GIS) interface. Pre-processed information, such as factors that determine the local and regional wind, and also the typical response of buildings to fire, are linked through a database, along with census-derived social and economic information. This presentation provides an overview of the FireDST simulation 'proof of concept' tool and walks through a sample probabilistic simulation constructed using the tool. Handbook MODSIM2013 Conference
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This Geoscience Australia Record documents the scientific analysis undertaken, and results obtained from geodetic monitoring during the Camden Environmental Monitoring Project (CEMP); a collaborative project undertaken with the New South Wales Department of Planning, Industry and Environment. The aim of the CEMP was to determine the environmental impacts, if any, of active coal seam gas extraction projects in New South Wales. Geodetic monitoring, using satellite radar interferometry (InSAR) and Global Positioning System (GPS) measurements, was used to specifically assess if subsidence (downward vertical land movement) is occurring at the Camden Gas Project; at the time the State’s only actively producing coal seam gas project. To address this question, Geoscience Australia undertook a comprehensive InSAR analysis using data sets from three orbiting radar satellites (ALOS, Envisat and Radarsat-2) covering two periods of time (2006 to 2010, and 2015 to 2019). The outputs of this InSAR analysis are vertical and horizontal ground surface displacement and velocity map products, together with a quantification of the uncertainty of these measurements. Furthermore, a new network of 20 ground geodetic monitoring sites was established in May and June 2016 for the purpose of validating measurements made using InSAR. GPS data was collected at these monitoring sites between July 2016 and June 2019 and processed to obtain 3-dimensional ground surface displacement and velocity measurements. From the analysis of independent InSAR and GPS data sets undertaken during the CEMP, we conclude that no measurable subsidence (i.e. a land movement velocity not greater than 10 mm/yr) has occurred as a result of coal seam gas production in the Camden Gas Project during the time periods of monitoring. However, decimetre-scale horizontal and vertical surface movements have occurred in the Southern Coalfields at the locations of subsurface longwall coal mines. Comparison of the measurements made by InSAR and GPS across the 20-site geodetic monitoring network shows that the two independent geodetic techniques agree within 10 millimetres, even when decimetre-scale movement is occurring. This demonstrates the potential for utilising InSAR for accurate remote monitoring of ground surface movements (including subsidence) at large scales and in the absence of sufficient ground geodetic monitoring infrastructure. The conclusions drawn and the measurements made in this work are specific to the area covered by the CEMP geodetic monitoring project, and are therefore not applicable to other resource extraction activities in other areas because of operational and geological differences from site to site. However, the methods described herein would be applicable to monitoring other resource extraction activities.
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Understanding surface water resources is important for communities, agriculture and the environment, especially in water-limited environments. In 2014 Geoscience Australia released the Water Observations from Space (WOfS) product, providing information on the presence of surface water across the Australian continent from 27 years of Landsat satellite imagery. WOfS was created to provide insight into the extent of flooding anywhere in Australia, but broader applications are emerging in the areas of wetland behaviour, river system mapping, groundwater surface water interaction, and water body perenniality. Understanding the characteristics of inundation for every waterbody across a county, over a period of time, gives a greater knowledge of perenniality and helps support decision making for a wide range of users including aquatic ecological community and water resource management. WOfS provides a consistent tool to locate and characterise water bodies at the continental scale.
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This Carnarvon Basin dataset contains descriptive attribute information for the areas bounded by the relevant spatial groundwater feature in the associated Hydrogeology Index map. Descriptive topics are grouped into the following themes: Location and administration; Demographics; Physical geography; Surface water; Geology; Hydrogeology; Groundwater; Groundwater management and use; Environment; Land use and industry types; and Scientific stimulus. The Carnarvon Basin is a large sedimentary basin covering the western and north-western coast of Western Australia, stretching over 1,000 km from Geraldton to Karratha. It is predominantly offshore, with over 80% of the basin located in water depths of up to 4,500 m. The basin is elongated north to south and connects to the Perth Basin in the south and the offshore Canning Basin in the north-east. It is underlain by Precambrian crystalline basement rocks. The Carnarvon Basin consists of two distinct parts. The southern portion comprises onshore sub-basins with mainly Paleozoic sedimentary rocks extending up to 300 km inland, while the northern section consists of offshore sub-basins containing Mesozoic, Cenozoic, and Paleozoic sequences. The geological evolution of the Southern Carnarvon Basin was shaped by multiple extensional episodes related to the breakup of Gondwana and reactivation of Archean and Proterozoic structures. The collision between Australia and Eurasia in the Mid-Miocene caused significant fault reactivation and inversion. The onshore region experienced arid conditions, leading to the formation of calcrete, followed by alluvial and eolian deposition and continued calcareous deposition offshore. The Northern Carnarvon Basin contains up to 15,000 m of sedimentary infill, primarily composed of siliciclastic deltaic to marine sediments from the Triassic to Early Cretaceous and shelf carbonates from the Mid-Cretaceous to Cenozoic. The basin is a significant hydrocarbon province, with most of the resources found within Upper Triassic, Jurassic, and Lower Cretaceous sandstone reservoirs. The basin's development occurred during four successive periods of extension and thermal subsidence, resulting in the formation of various sub-basins and structural highs. Overall, the Carnarvon Basin is a geologically complex region with a rich sedimentary history and significant hydrocarbon resources. Exploration drilling has been ongoing since 1953, with numerous wells drilled to unlock its hydrocarbon potential.
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Publicly available baseline ecology data are compiled to provide a common information base for environmental, resource development and regulatory decisions in the Adavale Basin region. This web service summarises the existing knowledge of the ecosystems and environmental assets in the Adavale Basin region.
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This Canning Basin dataset contains descriptive attribute information for the areas bounded by the relevant spatial groundwater feature in the associated Hydrogeology Index map. Descriptive topics are grouped into the following themes: Location and administration; Demographics; Physical geography; Surface water; Geology; Hydrogeology; Groundwater; Groundwater management and use; Environment; Land use and industry types; and Scientific stimulus. The Canning Basin, characterized by mostly Paleozoic sedimentary rocks with a maximum thickness of over 15,000 m, went through four major depositional phases from Early Ordovician to Early Cretaceous. The basin contains two main depocenters, the Fitzroy Trough-Gregory Sub-basin in the north and the Willara Sub-basin-Kidson Sub-basin in the south. The depositional history includes marine, evaporite, fluvial, deltaic, glacial, and non-marine environments. The basin's evolution began with extension and rapid subsidence in the Early Ordovician, followed by a sag stage with evaporite and playa conditions in the Late Ordovician and Silurian. The Devonian to Early Carboniferous phase involved marine, reef, fluvio-deltaic, and terrestrial sedimentation in the north and marginal marine to terrestrial systems in the south. The Late Carboniferous to mid-Triassic period saw non-marine and marine settings, including glacial environments. The basin then experienced mid-Jurassic to Early Cretaceous deposition, mainly in deltaic and non-marine environments. Throughout its history, the Canning Basin encountered multiple tectonic phases, including extension, compression, inversion, and wrench movements, leading to various depositional settings and sediment types. Around 250 petroleum wells have been drilled in the basin, with production mainly from Permo-Carboniferous sandstones and Devonian carbonates. Several proven and untested plays, such as draped bioherms, anticlinal closures, and fault blocks, provide potential for hydrocarbon exploration. Late Carboniferous and Jurassic mafic sills intersected in wells indicate additional geological complexity. Additionally, some areas of the Canning Basin are considered suitable for CO2 storage.