Wetlands deliver valuable ecosystem services but we don’t have consistent and comprehensive maps to characterise and manage these wetlands. An inventory of NSW wetlands is a fundamental to support risk assessment and adaptive management. A comprehensive inventory of wetlands will ensure that high quality regional scale data and information are available to the community and to those decision makers who are responsible for monitoring and managing our wetlands for current and future generations.
The development of semi-automated techniques for wetland mapping and assessment is a key step toward development of a statewide inventory and a more coordinated approach to management across NSW. We developed and tested semi-automated techniques for rapidly generating inundation histories (a key-driver for wetlands) over large arid and semi-arid areas. This level of automation requires management of uncertainty, which can only be satisfactorily achieved with a rigorous field validation program. Regional stakeholders and the historical knowledge that they hold are also critical for accuracy assessment and management of uncertainty, because any field validation exercise represents only a snapshot in time, within a dynamic wetland landscape.
Through the two-year pilot project in the Lachlan River catchment and along the NSW coast (Lake Macquarie and Central Coast), we developed the tools to build an inventory of wetlands. Our toolkit includes frameworks, method guidelines for mapping and classification of wetlands, a wetland map for the Lachlan and Central Coast/Lake Macquarie (preliminary), and a wetland plant indicator database (preliminary).
The potential uses for a NSW Wetland Inventory are extensive. Examples range from identification of environmental assets, through monitoring and evaluation of wetlands over time, to comparing similar wetland types for priority protection through Ramsar. State-wide management of wetlands will benefit from consistent and comprehensive mapping of wetland locations, extents and types across the state.