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What's New in NatureMaps

Update 8 - March 2009

Update 7 - January 2009

Update 6 - November 2008

Update 5 - October 2008

Update 4 - July 2008

Update 3 - December 2007

Update 2 - July 2007

Update 1 - May 2007

Update 8 - March 2009

Overview

New Murray Lakes Coorong Bathymetry Layer, updated February 2009. This layer graphically represents lake bed elevations of Lake Alexandrina, Lake Albert and the Coorong North Lagoon measured in metres above Australian Height Datum (AHD).

New imagery is now available in a consolidated format. To view the newest aerial photography over an area, simply turn on the "Latest Imagery 2000 - 2008" layer. To view the highest resolution aerial photography over an area, which is not necessarily the latest, turn on the "Best Res Imagery 2000 - 2008" layer.

To discover the year the image was taken in or the pixel resolution, click the identify button button next to the image name and click on the image. Full metadata is available upon request from Mapland.

Only one image can be turned on at a time, and if you are finished using imagery and would like the land and sea colours to reappear, turn on the "Land Infill" at the bottom of the Photography & Imagery folder.

The Coastal Oblique Photos, Flight Lines and Photo Centres have been moved into a separate "Coastal Photography" folder under the Photography & Imagery folder.

New Layers

  • Murray Lakes Coorong Bathymetry layer updated with new 2009 data (Landscapes > Wetlands > Lakes Coorong Bathymetry (10m) - 2009), more information.

    Bathymetry data for Lakes Alexandrina, Albert and the Coorong North Lagoon is now represented by a composite layer put together from sonar and LiDAR measurements. The sonar data was originally collected around May 2004 using boat based echo sounding techniques. In early 2008, exposed areas of the lake beds were surveyed using airborne LiDAR techniques down to a level of approximately -0.6m AHD(Australian Height Datum). The two source layers have been combined by CSIRO to produce an overall representation of bathymetry with absolute vertical accuracy in the order of +/- 0.15m. This layer can be used to broadly evaluate lakebed elevations.

  • Arid Lands (250cm) - 2007 imagery added (Map Base, Grids & Imagery > Photography & Imagery folder), more information.

  • Alinytjara Wilurara (250cm) - 2007 imagery added (Map Base, Grids & Imagery > Photography & Imagery folder), more information.

Update 7 - January 2009

Overview

The State Government is dedicated to conserving our coastal, estuarine and marine environments. It has commited to establishing a network of 19 marine parks within State waters by 2010. The South Australian Marine Parks were established to protect the biological diversity of South Australian coastal waters and provide for ecologically sustainable use of the States natural resources. The proposed SA Marine Park Network has now been released for public comment, and are on NatureMaps to view or download in a GIS format. The key coordinates for each proposed Marine Park are available in the SA's Marine Park Network Points layer, which is also available for download. More information is available at the Marine Park website. The Netting Closures layer can be viewed in conjunction with the proposed Marine Park boundaries to show where fish nets are currently prohibited.

New Functionality

  • Coordinates are now available in Degrees, Minutes and Seconds when using the Identify Tool. This complements the Map Grid of Australia coordinates (commonly used on Topographic Maps) that are already available.

New Layers

  • SA's Marine Park Network (D) layer added (Protected Areas folder), more information.

  • SA's Marine Park Network Points (D) layer added (Protected Areas folder), more information.

Update 6 - November 2008

Overview

The Adelaide-Mt Lofty Ranges Regional Recovery Pilot has developed a multi-taxa recovery plan that incorporates and integrates prioritised recovery and threat abatement actions for many of the threatened species and ecological communities within the Adelaide and Mount Lofty Ranges region. The threatened species prioritisation for the Sub-regional Landscapes is available from the "Landscapes - Species Priorities" layer, and complements the Draft Regional Recovery Plan for Threatened Species and Ecological Communities of Adelaide and the Mount Lofty Ranges, South Australia. more information

Revised mapping and classification of wetlands (water dependent ecosystems) on the Eyre Peninsula are now available in the Inventories layer (Landscapes > Wetlands). Information has been added to the Eyre Peninsula wetlands about land tenure, condition, water source and threats to assist site management in the future. The Inventories layer is now symbolised by Wetland Type.

New Layers

  • Landscapes - Species Priorities layer added (Flora & Fauna > Mt Lofty Ranges Regional Recovery Pilot), more information.

Updated Layers

Update 5 - October 2008

Overview

New Murray Lakes Coorong layers have been added. These layers provide information on the health and physical characteristics of the Murray Lakes Coorong and associated wetlands. Fire history layers have also been updated plus more labelling and symbolisation options have been included.

New Layers

  • New Murray Lakes Coorong Habitat Conditions layer added (Landscapes > Wetlands > Lakes Coorong Habitat Conditions, more information.

    Habitat conditions from the habitat mapping of The Coorong, Lake Alexandrina and Lake Albert records locations of aquatic and semi-aquatic habitats along with their condition as assessed in 2003.

  • New Murray Lakes Coorong Ramsar Types layer added (Landscapes > Wetlands > Lakes Coorong Ramsar Types, more information.

    Ramsar wetland classification from the habitat mapping of The Coorong, Lake Alexandrina and Lake Albert records locations of aquatic and semi-aquatic habitats along with their condition as assessed in 2003.

  • New Murray Lakes Coorong Bathymetry layer added (Landscapes > Wetlands > Lakes Coorong Bathymetry (5m) - 2006), more information.

    Bathymetry data for Lakes Alexandrina and Albert, Hindmarsh Island and Northern Coorong was collected over a 6 week period around May 2004. It was collected using echo sounding techniques and the resulting layer has approximate vertical accuracy of +/-50cm around the lake edges and +/-10cm in the middle of the water bodies. This layer can be used to broadly evaluate lakebed elevations - recent drops in water levels have exposed much of the shore regions above 0m AHD (Australian Height Datum).

Updated Layers

  • Fire History layers have been updated with 2008 Fire records, (Fire > Fire History, Last Fire (1931 - 2008), Last Fire (2003 - 2008), Fire Frequency (no. of burns)), more information.

New Functionality

  • It is now possible to change symbology on the NPWSA Reserves Outline layer (Protected Areas > NPWSA Reserves - Outline).

  • It is now possible to label Hundreds, LGAs and Suburbs in the Land Administration folder (Map Base, Grids & Imagery > Land Administration > Hundreds/LGAs/Suburbs).

Update 4 - July 2008

Overview

Extra functionality has been included in NatureMaps. Users can now temporarily upload their own Shapefiles onto NatureMaps for viewing in relation to existing NatureMaps layers. An Index Map function is also now available allowing users to see the position of the main map relative to the state.

New Functionality

  • The Upload Shapefile tool allows users to upload their own gis data for viewing against existing NatureMaps layers. This tool is accessible by clicking on the button in the toolbar.

  • The Index Map allows users to easily see the location of the main map in relation to the state. The Index Map can also be used to pan the main map to any area of the state simply by clicking on the desired location on the Index Map. The Index Map can be activated by clicking on the button in the toolbar.

New Layers

  • Pre-European Settlement Vegetation (Floristic) - Murray Mallee Pre-Euro. Veg. (Vegetation Mapping folder), more information.

  • Pre-European Settlement Vegetation (Floristic) - West Murray Pre-Euro. Veg. (Vegetation Mapping folder), more information.

    • These layers provides a description of vegetation type present prior to pre-European settlement, representing vegitation in areas that have now been cleared. In areas where the vegetation has not been cleared (where no Pre-European Vegetation is displayed) the Veg Floristic (NVIS) layer describes vegetation coverage.

Update 3 - December 2007

Overview

Some new features have been added to NatureMaps. Users can now download any Markup features they create in NatureMaps into ESRI Shapefile format for use in gis applications.

A new scale slider zoom function has been made available to make zooming even easier.

New documentation has been created to provide more assistance to users. The Add GPS Points user guide provides step by step instructions for adding GPS points to the map, whilst a new Bioregional Profiles Fact Sheet provides more information about the analysed Bioregional Profile (IBRA) layers.

Map Grid of Australia (MGA) grids, often used on Topographic Maps, and Longitude/Latitude graticules have been added. Users can now overlay grid lines on the map to have coordinate references displayed on the map for printing. These layers come in varying interval levels to suit a variety of needs.

SA Marine Parks has been introduced as a new layer and replaces the previous Great Australian Bight Marine Park layer. This layer was created by adding the new Murray and Nelson Marine Reserves to the information contained in the Great Australian Bight Marine Park layer.

Kangaroo Island 2006 imagery is now available, which has been captured at 40cm resolution.

New Functionality

New documentation

New Layers

Update 2 - July 2007

Overview

Some additional functionality has been added into NatureMaps. Users can search for layers in NatureMaps by typing in part of a layer name, and all matching layers will be put into a folder at the bottom of the layer list.

Users can now view the coordinates in metres rather than in degrees when using the Measure Area, Measure Distance and Point Markup with Coordinate tools as they are now displayed in Map Grid of Australia 1994 coordinates (UTM coordinates) rather than Longitude and Latitude values, making it easier to relate the coordinates to the area and distance values calculated as they are all in metres, and also to align coordinates with Topographic Maps.

Monitoring data has now been introduced into NatureMaps, with Beach Profile Sample data providing users with the changes in beach sand levels over time, with some profile points monitored regularly since 1975.

New functionality

  • On the Map Layers list there is a "Search for Layers" that allows users to find all layers by typing in part of a layer's name and put them into a folder at the bottom of the Map Layers list. For example, if a user searches for "road", it will find Roads, Roads General and Roadside Veg. If a user turns a layer on/off in this folder, it will be turned on/off in the layer's source folder (eg Roadside Veg in Vegetation Mapping).

  • The coordinates in the Measure Area , Measure Distance and Point Markup with Coordinate tools have been changed to display Map Grid of Australia 1994 coordinates (UTM coordinates), in line with the map centre coordinate displayed at the bottom right of the map, and the coordinate displayed in the Identify Report. Please note that it will not display the zone (eg 52, 53, 54) but is correctly calculating the coordinates even if your Measure points have crossed zone boundaries.

New monitoring data

The Beach Profile sample monitoring data is now available in the Identify Report for Beach Profile Points (Landscapes > Coast & Marine). The Identify Report displays all the dates the Profile Point has been sampled, and when the user selects the small box next to a date, the height information is displayed. Users can also select all profile points sampled in a particular year via the Select Using Query Builder option under the Select Tab.



Update 1 - May 2007

Overview

Some useful new features have been added to NatureMaps. Users can now download selected NatureMaps layers to an ESRI shapefile to use in gis software for analysis with their own local datasets.

Users can now also quickly and easily view GPS points they have collected on NatureMaps, so they can assess their data in relation to other NatureMaps datasets and create map outputs for reports.

As part of an initiative to add more information as opposed to base data two new analysed layers are now available in NatureMaps. These layers identify the amount of native vegetation remaining (veg cover) and the amount of area of land managed for conservation (reservation) within the IBRA Subregions and Associations.

These and other improvements to NatureMaps are explained in more detail below:

New Functionality

New Analysed Layers

New Data Layers

Layer changes


New functionality

New Analysed Layers

The Interim Biogeographical Regionalisation of Australia (IBRA) provides a biogeographic framework for assessing biological priorities across the landscape. A gis analysis was undertaken to identify within the IBRA Subregions and Associations the amount of native vegetation remaining (veg cover) and the amount of area of land managed for conservation (reservation). This can be used to identify what are the management issues within a biogeographic region or association.

New Data Layers

Layer changes

  • "Wetlands" changed to "Inventories", as this layer only contains Wetlands mapped during inventories, and moved into a new Wetlands folder under the Landscapes folder.

  • "Bookmark Biosphere" changed to "Biosphere Reserves" due to declaration of additional Biosphere Reserve.

  • IBRA Subregions and IBRA Associations (Landscapes > Land > IBRA folder) now have additional descriptive fields, eg soil, landform, vegetation, etc

  SA Central, Government of South Australia
SA Central SA Government logo. Link to Minister's web site Department for Environment and Heritage