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nghenvironmental have completed several large scale vegetation mapping projects. These include: - Updating of vegetation assemblage mapping for NPWS lands on the far south coast between Merimbula and Bermagui; and
- Mapping of vegetation in the ski resort areas of Kosciuszko National Park.
The far south coast work involved the validation and re-mapping of forest ecosystems in four stages from 2000 to 2003. Vegetation covering an area of 175,000 hectares (1,750 km˛) was surveyed with the objective of validating vegetation maps completed during the Comprehensive Regional Assessment program. The validated maps are necessary to facilitate improved management of National Park Estate, especially in relation to fire management and preparation of Plans of Management for relevant National Parks. They also enhance baseline data availability for planning and conservation on private lands of forest ecosystems that are poorly represented in existing National Parks.
The validation required the expert input of botanists, geographic information systems experts and aerial photo interpreters. The methodology involved remapping of the modelled distribution utilising ARCview 8.3 GIS software.
The mapping of Kosciuszko ski resort vegetation was completed in association with Ecology Australia for the NSW Department of Planning (then Planning NSW). It involved detailed documentation of the vegetation surrounding 5 resorts, which span montane to alpine environments. The vegetation descriptions were based on an analysis of 256 quadrats and reference to previous mapping of c. 60% of Perisher Resort (White and McMahon 2000).
Vegetation mapping was based on aerial photo interpretation, field checking and interpretation of quadrat data. A total of 29 plant communities were described. The vegetation maps were produced as a GIS layer which has proved valuable for ongoing planning purposes and was also recently used by nghenvironmental as the basis for detailed bushfire hazard mapping of some of the resorts.
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