DOI: 10.25948/6fcf-gc02
title: NSW Land Use 2017 v1.5

description: The 2017 Land use captures how the landscape in NSW is being used for food production, forestry, nature conservation, infrastructure and urban development. It can be used to monitor changes in the landscape and identify impacts on biodiversity values and individual ecosystems.

The NSW 2017 Land use mapping is dated September 2017. 

This is version 1.5 of the dataset, published December 2023.

Version 1.5 of the 2017 Land use incorporates the following updates:

* Fine scale mapping of the Central Coast, Illawarra and Shoalhaven regions
* Mapping enhancements to regional centres to improve the mapping accuracy for these centres
* NSW road network based on road centreline data from Transport NSW, with standardised buffer applied to approximate the carriage width based on the road type
* Plantation type (native hardwood and softwood) information within State Forest Estates 
* Horticulture data to tertiary or commodity level present in September 2017 from Australian Tree Crop Map Dashboard developed by University of New England - Applied Agricultural Remote Sensing Centre 
https://www.une.edu.au/research/research-centres-institutes/applied-agricultural-remote-sensing-centre/collaborative-r-and-d-opportunities/industry-applications-and-maps
* Fixes to identified errors since published version 1.2 

Previous Versions
*Version 1.4 internal update (not published)
* Version 1.3 internal update (not published)
* Version 1.2 published 24 June 2020 - Fine scale update to Greater Sydney Metropolitan Area
* Version 1 published August 2019

The 2017 Land use is based on Aerial imagery and Satellite imagery available for NSW. These include, but not limited to; digital aerial imagery (ADS) captured by NSW Department of Customer Service (DCS), high resolution urban (Conurbation) digital aerial imagery captured on behalf of DCS, SPOT 5, 6 & 7(Airbus), Planet™, Sentinel 2 (European Space Agency) and LANDSAT (NASA) Satellite Imagery. Mapping also includes commercially available imagery from Nearmap™ and Google Earth™, along with Google Street View™.   

Mapping takes into consideration ancillary datasets such as tenure such as National Parks and State forests, cadastre, roads parcels, land zoning, topographic information and Google Maps, in conjunction with visual interpretation and field validation of patterns and features on the ground. 

The 2017 Land use was captured on screen using ARC GIS (Geographical Information Software) at a scale of 1:8,000 scale (or better) and features are mapped down to 2 hectares in size. Exceptions were made for targeted Land use classes such as horticulture, intensive animal husbandry and urban environments, which were mapped at a finer scale.

The 2017 Land use has complete coverage of NSW. It also includes updates to the fine scale Horticulture mapping for the east coast of NSW - Newcastle to the Queensland boarder and Murray-Riverina Region.  This horticultural mapping includes operations to the commodity level based on field work and high-resolution imagery interpretation. 

Land use classes assigned are based on activities that have occurred in the last 5-10 years that may be part of a rotational practice. Time-series LANDSAT information has been used in conjunction with more recent Satellite Imagery to determine whether grasslands have been disturbed or subject to ongoing land management activities over the past 30 years.

The 2017 Land use was captured on screen using ARC GIS (Geographical Information Software) at a scale of 1:8,000 scale (or better) and features are mapped down to 2 hectares in size. Exceptions were made for targeted Land use classes such as horticulture, intensive animal husbandry and urban environments (including Greater Sydney Metropolitan region), which were mapped at a finer scale. 

The reliability scale of the dataset is 1:10,000.

Mapping has been subject to a peer review and quality assurance process.

Land use information has been captured in accordance with standards set by the Australian Collaborative Land Use Mapping Program (ACLUMP) and using the Australian Land Use and Management ALUM Classification Version 8. The ALUM classification is based upon the modified Baxter & Russell classification and presented according to the specifications contained in http://www.agriculture.gov.au/abares/aclump/land-use/alum-classification.

This  product will be incorporated in the National Catchment scale land use product 2020 that will be available as a 50m raster - Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics and Sciences (ABARES) http://www.agriculture.gov.au/abares/aclump/land-use/data-download

The Department of Planning, Industry and Environment (DPIE) will continue to complete land use mapping at approximately 5-year intervals. 

The 2017 Land use product is considered as a benchmark product that can be used for Land use change reporting. Ongoing improvements to the 2017 Land use product will be undertaken to correct errors or additional improvements to the mapping.