This project will integrate biodiversity data to support Australia’s National State of the Environment (SoE) report.

Rich biodiversity data comes from National Collaborative Research Infrastructure Strategy (NCRIS)-supported facilities ALA, TERN and IMOS. The newly developed data assets, which will be findable, accessible, interoperable and reusable (FAIR), will add significant value to the SoE report, and other areas such as environmental accounting and impact assessments.

The SoE report is produced every five years to meet the commonwealth’s statutory reporting obligations and relies extensively on high quality national environmental data.

Co-investment partners
Atlas of Living Australia (ALA)
Terrestrial Ecosystem Research Network (TERN)
Integrated Marine Observing System (IMOS)
Department of Agriculture, Water and the Environment (DAWE)
Lead node
1 State of the Environment (SoE) report requirements and evaluation
Refine planned priority data assets and document requirements including implementation plan for each NCRIS facility
2 Data pipelines developed
Enhance internal data pipelines for TERN, IMOS, and ALA to feed into EcoAssets and deliver early version of data assets
3 Versioned access of data assets
Versioned access will be put in place for data assets. This includes their presentation via an online summary catalogue
4 Public versions of data assets
Data assets will become available for use and reference by SoE chapter authors
5 Data pipelines established
Data pipelines will be established as part of the persistent and lasting data infrastructure for TERN, IMOS, and ALA
6 Plan development for data asset discovery
Plans will be put in place for the wider discovery of data assets through national and international information platforms

Core features

Improvements to data pipelines
EcoAssets will develop pipelines that offer standard views of the biodiversity component of data collected during TERN and IMOS field programmes for aggregation with ALA data streams.
Aggregation of similar data
Partners will deliver and maintain high-value national data products that will serve as reference assets and a baseline for future environmental assessment. Data assets include species distribution, monitoring activity and growth in biodiversity knowledge.
Alignment of data services
The newly aggregated data assets will provide a single set of data for major environmental products from the NCRIS infrastructures. This collection will feature standardised metadata, spatial and temporal units and other facets to support SoE.

Who is this project for?

  • Researchers
  • Research organisations
  • Government (state and commonwealth)
  • Data analysts

What does this project enable?

This project will enable streamlined national reporting of biodiversity information, using the SoE 2021 report as a focus. Data linkages and summary formats will provide easy-to-access information on indicators and trends. Data pipelines developed will enable future continuous updates and integration of new data from partners.

Handy resources

  • Read the State of the Environment 2016 report
  • Discover Atlas of Living Australia data collections
  • Discover  TERN data collections
  • Discover IMOS data collections and tools
  • For reference, the full title of this project is “Ecosystem data integration to support national environmental reporting (State of the Environment)”
Atlas of Living Australia (ALA)Visit
Terrestrial Ecosystem Research Network (TERN)Visit
Integrated Marine Observing System (IMOS)Visit
Department of Agriculture, Water and the Environment (DAWE)Visit