Ecological Communities of National
Environmental Significance
This is the first release of the generalised EPBC Act Listed threatened
ecological communities spatial information. The GIS data is available in
vector format within an ESRI Geodatabase.
Background
The Ecological Communities of National Environmental Significance Database contains general information about the
occurrence and distribution of threatened ecological communities listed under the Environment Protection and
Biodiversity Act 1999 (EPBC ACT).
Previously departmental information on the distribution and occurrence of EPBC listed ecological communities was
contained within the Species Profile and Threats database (SPRAT: http://www.environment.gov.au/cgibin/sprat/public/sprat.pl). Threatened community information can be obtained from linked recovery plans, conservation
advices, policy documents and simplified location maps. Lists of threatened ecological communities that occur in a
location can be generated through the Protected Matters Search Tool (http://www.environment.gov.au/epbc/protectedmatters-search-tool) available on the Department of the Environment’s webpage.
Distribution models of threatened ecological communities have been developed to allow the Department to respond to
the frequent requests from natural resource managers seeking spatial information in a suitable format for regional
scale planning.
The release of the generalised data version of the ECNES (Ecological Communities of National Environmental
Significance) database has been developed to allow the public to access distribution information of Australia’s
threatened ecological communities. The data have been generalised at 100m, with the exception of those ecological
communities occurring within Western Australia. Distributions of ecological communities that occur within Western
Australia have been generalised at 1km at the request of the Department of Parks and Wildlife, Western Australia.
The product consists of:
 GIS data in vector format within an ESRI file geodatabase. The data can be imported into a geographic
information system. A look-up table has been included to improve efficiency
 An index (in CSV format) containing important information and a link to the SPRAT profile of each ecological
community displayed in the product.
The development of this ECNES product is in line with the Commonwealth’s principle of open data access and is
being promoted under the Australian Government’s environmental approval bilateral agreements with the States and
Territories.
Ecological Community Distribution Mapping
The data have been derived from maps created by spatial ecologists within the Department of the Environment. These
maps have been created using ecological data, research information, observation records, vegetation mapping and
modelling software with national-scale environmental data. They are predictive models of the occurrence of a given
ecological community and should be considered as indicative rather than a definitive assessment of presence or
absence. They represent a starting point for further investigation rather than the outcome of a comprehensive
scientific assessment.
The generalised distributions provide an indication of the spatial certainty of presence by classifying into one of three
presence categories: known to occur, likely to occur or may occur.
The ‘known to occur’ presence category indicates where State agencies and/or other experts have determined the
presence of an ecological community. ‘Known to occur’ is therefore often restricted to small, discrete and well-defined
geographic areas or features, such as the Thrombolite community of Western Australia. In some cases, an
ecologically appropriate buffer has been used to encompass the community and its values.
The ‘likely to occur’ presence category is an approximate boundary of the current extent of the ecological community.
The boundaries have often been delineated using State and Federal vegetation mapping polygons. However,
ecological communities are defined by the interactions of species and physical characteristics, and it can be difficult to
develop an absolute indication of where a community does or does not occur. The uncertainty in the ‘likely to occur’
boundary reflects the Department’s need to balance accurate and useful information for natural resource managers,
and a legally and scientifically defensible method of protecting important ecological communities where they occur.
The ‘may occur’ presence category is typically the outer perimeter of where the ecological community could be
encountered, although the community may still be found outside the boundary. Generally, the ‘may occur’ category
encompasses the range of ecological and biophysical characteristics that have been used to define the community in the
listing advice. The ‘may occur’ boundary often reflects other natural boundaries, like vegetation groups and geological
features.
Spatial data has no legal status and must always defer to the Conservation Advice. It is unsafe to use the spatial data
only to decide if an ecological community of national environmental significance occurs at a particular location.
Generalisation
The generalised distributions are a compilation of many different datasets, mapped at multiple scales over varying
timeframes using different collection and classification methods. The accuracy of the data will usually vary more than
+/-100m. The generalised distributions are indicative products only and are not intended for use at a local level.
With the exception of ecological communities in Western Australia, the distribution of all ecological communities within
ECNES have been generalised to 0.001 decimal degrees (~100m). Distributions within Western Australia have been
generalised to 0.01 decimal degrees (~1km) at the request of the Western Australia Department of Parks and Wildlife.
For more information, please email sprat@environment.gov.au.
About the data
The community distributions have been collated into a single feature class. The feature class can be joined with the
Look-up table using the common “COM_ID” field. The index spreadsheet (CSV) contains additional information and
links to the community profiles on SPRAT.
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The file geodatabase and index spreadsheet have been zipped into an archive file. The archive file is available from
the Department of the Environment’s data portal ‘Find Environmental Data’
(www.environment.gov.au/fed/catalog/main/home.page).
Updates
The underlying Ecological Communities of National Environmental Significance database is continuously updated as
the list of ecological communities on the schedules of the EPBC Act is amended or more information becomes
available. It is anticipated that the generalised data product derived from the database will be updated annually.
Members of the public are encouraged to provide feedback to sprat@environment.gov.au.
© Commonwealth of Australia, 2015.
This fact sheet is licensed by Commonwealth of Australia under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0
Australia licence.
The views and opinions expressed in this publication are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect
those of the Australian Government or the Minister for the Environment.
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