Open Access

John S. Benson

• A vegetation classification titled, NSW Vegetation Classification and Assessment (NSWVCA), is described. It aims to classify the native vegetation of New South Wales, Australia covering 80 million hectares distributed across 18 Australian bioregions. It is estimated that between 800 and 1200 plant communities will be described. The best available data is used to establish the classification including vegetation map descriptions, floristic groups derived from plot data and expert advice. Extensive field checking assists with the classification and status assessments. Plant communities are listed under five hierarchical levels and are recorded on a database containing 90 fields supported by 45 tables and 64 forms. 39 database reports list plant communities for several types of planning regions and under State and national broad vegetation classifications. Database fields include plant community scientific name, common name, three layers of characteristic species, an ‘Authority’ field that cites references supporting the definition of a community, substrate, soils, landform, distribution by various regions including bioregions and Catchment Management Authority areas, descriptions and lists of threatening processes and aspects of condition. Estimates of pre-European extent, current extent and areas in public reserves and secure property agreements are recorded and qualified with accuracy levels. One of five threat categories: ‘critically endangered’, ‘endangered’, ‘vulnerable’, ‘near threatened’ or ‘least concern’ is assigned to each plant community based on the application of six criteria including: the proportion of remaining extent compared to an estimated pre-European extent, loss of key species and plant community integrity. The NSWVCA will progress over four geographical sections of NSW commencing with the mainly arid and semi-arid Western Plains (this volume), progressing eastwards to the Western Slopes, the Tablelands and finally the biologically complex Coast and Escarpment. The NSWVCA will assist with: selecting new protected areas, guiding incentive payments and land use decisions in the NSW property vegetation planning process, site assessment in environmental impact assessments, assisting with nominations and definitions of threatened ecological communities in State and Federal laws, prioritizing CMA and other regional targets for the protection and restoration of vegetation and assisting in public education about native vegetation. A CD accompanying the paper contains a read-only version of the database and outputs of Part 1 of the NSWVCA project – the vegetation of the NSW Western Plains.