Acknowledgements

Habitat Mapping

The habitat mapping component of the NRM module was developed as part of a collaborative project between the Department of Climate Change (DCC) and the National Land and Water Resourced Audit to support:

1. A first pass vulnerability assessment of the whole Australian coastline
2. Reporting on the extent and distribution of key ECM habitats for NRM purposes
3. The development of marine ‘ecoregions’ or bioregional subregions.

The project was led by Richard Mount (UTAS) and project outputs are published under the following titles:

1. Mount, R.E. and P.J. Bricher, 2008a. Estuarine, Coastal and Marine (ECM) National Habitat Mapping Project, Project Report Version 1 February 2008. Spatial Science Group, School of Geography and Environmental Studies, University of Tasmania. Report to the Department of Climate Change and the National Land and Water Resources Audit, Canberra, ACT.
2. Mount, R.E. and P.J. Bricher, 2008b. Estuarine, Coastal and Marine (ECM) National Habitat Mapping Project, ECM National Habitat Map Series User Guide Version 1 February 2008. Spatial Science Group, School of Geography and Environmental Studies, University of Tasmania. Report to the Department of Climate Change and the National Land and Water Resources Audit, Canberra, ACT. ECM National Habitat Map Series User Guide.

A very large number of agencies at the national and state level participated in this national project. In terms of the actual data sets, the project was dependent on the goodwill and cooperation of these partners and contributors. Acknowledgements of the individuals involved is covered in the project documentation; however, the following agencies are appreciated and acknowledged:

Summary List of Data Custodians

For the whole ECM National Habitat Map Series all the following contributors must be acknowledged:

Subset of contributors for the National Intertidal/Subtidal (NISB) Habitat Map:

1. Department of Natural Resources, Environment and the Arts, Northern Territory Government of Australia
2. Queensland Department of Primary Industries and Fisheries
3. Queensland Parks and Wildlife Services Environmental Protection Agency
4. Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority
5. National Oceans Office
6. Western Australia Department of Environment and Conservation
7. South Australian Department of Environment and Heritage
8. New South Wales Department of Environment and Conservation
9. New South Wales Department of Primary Industries: Fisheries
10. Conservation Commission of the Northern Territory Land Conservation Unit
11. Victorian Department of Primary Industries
12. Parks Victoria
13. Tasmanian Aquaculture and Fisheries Institute

Subset of contributors for the Coastal Wetlands Collection:

1. Queensland Environmental Protection Agency
2. Australian Government Department of the Environment and Heritage
3. NSW Department of Planning

Subset of contributors for the Estuaries Collection:

1. Geoscience Australia

Subset of contributors for the Dune and Dune Vegetation Collection:

1. Australian Government Department of the Environment and Heritage
2. Department of Natural Resources, Environment and the Arts, Northern Territory Government of Australia
3. Queensland Department of Primary Industries and Fisheries
4. WA Department of Industry and Resources
5. WA Department of Minerals and Energy
6. WA Department of Mineral and Petroleum Resources
7. Victorian Department of Primary Industries
8. SA DEH – Natural and Cultural Heritage
9. Queensland Herbarium, Environmental Protection Agency
10. NSW Department of Primary Industries, Mineral Resources
11. NSW Department of Mineral Resources (DMR)

The NISB Habitat Classification Scheme (Mount and Bricher, 2007) is the result of the work of many people including those who, over the years, have led the development of habitat mapping in the challenging coastal and marine environments. We would like to particularly acknowledge the following people who have directly contributed to the production of the scheme: David Ball, Victoria; Ewan Buckley, Chris Simpson and Kevin Bancroft, WA; Alan Jordan, NSW; Vanessa Lucieer, Tasmania; Len McKenzie, QLD; David Miller, SA; Elvira Poloczanska, CSIRO; David Ryan, GA; Neil Smit, NT; Rob Thorman, Audit; and Gina Newton.

Valuable contributions were also made by Daniel Ierodiaconou, Jo Klemke and Anthony Boxshall (Victoria), Stuart Phinn and Mike Ronan (Queensland), Ewan Buckley (WA), Rob Williams (NSW), Matthew Royal, David Miller, Bryan McDonald, Sam Gaylard and Doug Fotheringham (South Australia), and Neil Smit and the others in Northern Territory.

Peter Wilson, Audit, Robyn Gallagher, (then ERIN, later GA), Damian Woolcombe, ERIN and Brian Burbridge, GA provided excellent advice about how to manage data licensing. Viv Bordas, Audit, worked persistently to produce the extent calculations for the NRM Regions and the states.

The core UTAS team consisted of Richard Mount, Phillippa Bricher, Jenny Newton, Katherine Tattersall and Simon File. They were magnificently supported by: Tore Pedersen, Luke Wallace, Dom Jaskierniak, Chris Sharples and Samya Jabbour, Jon Osborn, Elaine Stratford, Tony Baker and Richard Atkins.

The habitat maps were integrated into OzCoasts by the OzCoasts web team at Geoscience Australia (GA). The OzCoast team included: Mark Babic (web developer), Ian Greenwood (Business Analyst), Xiaojing Li (Web developer and OzCoasts technical manager), Lynda Radke (OzCoasts content manager), Domenic Rositano (Team Leader, Web and Applications Development, Information, Analysis and Development Services), Trevor Tracey-Patte (Database developer), Izabella Urbanek (Database developer) and Manjula Weerasooriya (Business Analyst)

Report Carding

The NRM Report Card component of OzCoasts was designed by Ian Greenwood (GA), Richard Mount (UTAS), Lynda Radke (GA), Tony Roper (NSW Department of Environment & Climate Change), David Scheltinga and Jan Tilden (QLD EPA). It was developed by Izabella Urbanek (GA), Trevor Tracey-Patte (GA) and Xiaojing Li (GA) under the guidance of Domenic Rositano (GA).

Indicator Guidelines

The indicator guidelines were reviewed by key experts in their respective fields. These reviews were considered necessary as, though there has been an extensive process to develop and write and rewrite the indicators to this stage, enough had changed to warrant a review. The primary authors were David Scheltinga, QLD EPA, and Richard Mount, UTAS, with major contributions made by all those that have participated in developing the OzCoasts ECM fact sheets, especially Lynda Radke at Geoscience Australia.

Valuable contributions to the guidelines were made by the following people: Alan Jordan, NSW DPIF; David Ball, PIRVic; Doug Fotheringham, SA DEH; David Ryan and Brendan Brooke, Geoscience Australia; Christine Crawford, John Gibson and Alastair Hirst, Tasmanian Aquaculture and Fisheries Institute, UTAS; Peter A. Thompson, Graeme Batley, Phillip Ford, CSIRO; Chris Roelfsema and Greg Skilleter, University of Queensland; Michael Bartkow and Joachim Mueller, EnTox UQ; Lorraine Hitch and Ilsa Kiessling, DEWHA; Karen Edyvane, NT NRETA; Andrew Johnson and Benjamin Davey, DAFF.

Environment Management

The Environment Management Framework was developed by the Cooperative Research Centre for Coastal Zone, Estuary & Waterway Research, and was originally housed at their site under the name OzCoast .

The original project team consisted of:

Kerry Rosenthal, Donna Barchiesi, Jan Tilden, Regina Souter, Alicia Bell, Lana Heydon, John Bennett (former Coastal CRC ); Neville Montgomerie, Rohan Nishantha (Geoscience Australia); Rohan Tankey, Emma Walker, Ben Davis (formerly Geoscience Australia); Jimaima Le Grand, Simon Hill, Rowan Eisner (Queensland Department of Natural Resources and Water); Ian Jefferys, Jessica Wallwork, David Gardiner (formerly Queensland Department of Natural Resources, Mines and Water); David Pullar (University of Queensland); Xuan Zhu (Associate of the Coastal CRC ).

The following “buddies” also provided input and feedback throughout the project:

Jeanie Heaslop (formerly Fitzroy Basin Association); Sean Galvin ( Natural Resource Management, South-east Queensland); Nick Marsh (Queensland Environmental Protection Agency); Tanya Ashworth and Kirstin Kenyon (formerly Australian Government NRM Team).

A number of other officers from partner agencies also provided valuable input:

Craig Smith, Brendan Brooke and John Ryan (Geoscience Australia) for input and guidance on OzEstuaries ; Paul Lawrence (Queensland Department of Natural Resources and Water) for input and direction on decision support systems; David Scheltinga (former Coastal CRC ) for advice on estuarine, coastal and marine indicators for regional NRM monitoring.

The content of the Environmental Management module (i.e. the former OzCoast) was merged with OzEstuaries by: Mark Babic, Damian Clark, Ian Greenwood, Xiaojing Li, Neville Montgomerie, Rohan Nishantha, Susan Ring, Lynda Radke and Trevor Tracey-Patte (Geoscience Australia ), with helpful feedback provided by Kerry Rosenthal (Queensland Department of Natural Resources and Water)and John Bennett (Queensland Environmental Protection Agency). Helpful reviews of the revised site were provided by Christopher Lukes, Emma Murray, David Scheltinga, Kerry Rosenthal, Gina Newton and Will Green. David Scheltinga has kindly updated all information on coastal stressors.