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Biodiversity values on the mound

As part of the Gnangara Sustainability Strategy, the Department of Environment and Conservation is undertaking the following project:

The project

The Gnangara groundwater system includes an area of 75 000 hectares of public land containing pine plantation and the largest connected area of remnant native woodland on the Swan Coastal Plain.

It has significant biodiversity assets including over 600 wetlands, threatened species and Threatened Ecological Communities.

Our understanding of biodiversity values and their responses to a drying climate is limited. This project seeks to improve our understanding and measurement of biodiversity values, and the processes that maintain them.

The information obtained will provide input into the decision support system. This integrates physical, economic and social information to provide quantitative assessment of land and water management options at the regional or local area level.

What will the project achieve?

The objectives of the project are:

• Collate biodiversity datasets into a spatial data system.
• Model the landscape distribution of biodiversity assets and habitats.
• Assess, analyse and produce models to determine impacts of land-use scenarios.
• Determine the susceptibility of biodiversity assets to threatening processes, particularly falling groundwater levels, fire, fragmentation and Phytophthora cinnamomi.
• Undertake a risk analysis for threats to biodiversity and to determine priorities.

For more information on these and other projects, please contact us at gss@water.wa.gov.au