Assessing biodiversity
Assessing areas of high biodiversity plays a vital role in determining key areas for conservation and establishing conservation priorities.
Biodiversity significance is a ranking of an area according to specified values to account for rarity, diversity, fragmentation, habitat condition, resilience, threats, and ecosystem processes.
The more critical role an area or system plays for ecosystems, the more value it has in positively influencing biodiversity.
The value of an area is assessed on an extensive set of attributes such as relative size or condition, whether it is habitat for threatened species, or if it provides connectivity across the landscape.
In the terrestrial environment, current vegetation extent and regional ecosystem mapping defines remnant vegetation and pre-clearing vegetation. This provides an exceptional basis for comparing Queensland’s landscape before and after land-clearing and helps guide conservation efforts. Regional vegetation mapping uses satellite imagery, in combination with recent aerial photography and field-based information to confirm data accuracy.
Aquatic Conservation Assessments (AquaBAMM)
DERM has developed a novel method for assessing conservation values of wetlands in Queensland. The Aquatic Biodiversity Assessment and Mapping Method (AquaBAMM) is a comprehensive method that identifies relative wetland conservation values within a specified study area (usually a catchment). The method is used to produce an Aquatic Conservation Assessment (ACA) of wetlands within a study area using available data including data resulting from expert opinion.
Biodiversity Planning Assessments (BAMM)
The Biodiversity Assessment and Mapping Methodology (BAMM) has been developed to provide a consistent approach for assessing biodiversity values at the landscape scale in Queensland. The BAMM is based on vegetation mapping from the Queensland Herbarium and incorporates a range of biodiversity-related data. The BAMM is focussed primarily on assessing terrestrial values. It is being used by the department to generate Biodiversity Planning Assessments (BPAs) for each of Queensland’s bioregions.
BioCondition
BioCondition is a vegetation condition assessment tool to measure how well a terrestrial ecosystem is maintaining biodiversity values at a local or property scale. In BioCondition, vegetation condition is referred to as ‘how much the attributes of a patch of vegetation differ from the attributes of the same vegetation type in its reference state’.
Biodiversity hotspots on Queensland’s stock routes
The Stock Route Network (SRN) of western Queensland has significant economic value for pastoralists, and has significant habitat for biodiversity conservation priorities for Queensland. A recent project identified 47 biodiversity hotspots as well as other sites of high nature conservation or geological value, and sites that require further research. For each biodiversity hotspot, the biological values were identified, including the presence of priority species, as well as the threats, current management, and recommended management actions.
Last updated 17 December 2010