The total number of ecological assets assessed for water dependency in the PAE of the Clarence-Moreton bioregion was 1616, including 1111 in the ‘Surface water feature’ subgroup and 505 in the ‘Vegetation’ subgroup (Table 6). All of the 1111 surface water features (consisting of six classes listed in Table 6) were assumed to be water dependent and were included in the water‑dependent asset register. Of the 505 vegetation ecological assets, there were 157 classed as ‘Groundwater-dependent ecosystem’ of which all are water dependent.
Table 6 Summary of ecological assets within the preliminary assessment extent (PAE) of the Clarence-Moreton bioregion
Data: Bioregional Assessment Programme (Dataset 1)
Data: Bioregional Assessment Programme (Dataset 1)
1.3.2.1.1 Surface water features
There were 1111 ecological assets associated with the 'Surface water features' subgroup in the PAE of the Clarence-Moreton bioregion (Table 6). These assets included: wetland, wetland complex or swamp; lake, reservoir, lagoon or estuary; marsh, sedgeland, bog spring or soak (Figure 7), rivers and streams (Figure 8). For the purposes of compiling the preliminary version of the asset register, all assets within this subgroup were assumed to be water dependent.
Data: Bioregional Assessment Programme (Dataset 1)
Data: Geoscience Australia (Dataset 3)
1.3.2.1.2 Groundwater features
Subsurface and surface (where groundwater rises to meet surface water) GDEs were present in the PAE of the Clarence-Moreton bioregion including groundwater-dependent vegetation. There were 157 groundwater-dependent ecosystem groundwater features assumed to be water dependent (Table 6). Water dependency for this class was determined by recent fine-scale (1:10,000) GDE mapping within the PAE (NSW Office of Water, 2014; DEHP, 2014). All of the fine-scale GDE data were considered water dependent,
Assessing GDEs was difficult due to the limited availability of data across the PAE. In the Clarence-Moreton Bioregional Assessment, a cautionary approach is applied and assets were included in the register if the asset intersected with the recent fine-scale GDE data from the Queensland and NSW state agencies (DEHP, 2014; NSW Office of Water, 2014).
1.3.2.1.3 Vegetation
The PAE of the Clarence-Moreton bioregion contained much of the South East Queensland Interim Biogeographic Regionalisation for Australia (IBRA) bioregion and consisted of five IBRA subregions: (i) Clarence Lowlands, (ii) Clarence Sandstones, (iii) Woodenbong, (iv) Scenic Rim and (v) Moreton Basin (SEWPaC, 2012) (for more details see Table 16 in companion product 1.1 for the Clarence-Moreton bioregion (Rassam et al., 2014)).
Seven threatened ecological communities listed under the Commonwealth's Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 (EPBC Act) were in the PAE of the Clarence-Moreton bioregion (Table 7). Six of these threatened ecological communities are included in the water-dependent asset register where the community represented is associated with a subsurface or surface groundwater-dependent ecosystem.
Table 7 Threatened ecological communities listed under the Commonwealth's Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 within the preliminary assessment extent (PAE) of the Clarence-Moreton bioregion
Data: Department of the Environment (Dataset 2)
aTypology and punctuation are given as they are used in the legislation.
The asset register contains 120 Collaborative Australian Protected Area Database (CAPAD) areas that occur in the PAE. CAPAD areas include: national parks (e.g. Bungawalbin National Park), conservation reserves (e.g. Toonumbar State Conservation Area) and Indigenous Protected Areas (e.g. Bandahngan Aboriginal Area). These areas largely represent terrestrial nature reserves. If surface water features or GDEs are contained within the area, they are assumed to be water dependent.
There are 432 threatened species listed under the Queensland, NSW and Commonwealth legislations that are known to utilise the Clarence-Moreton bioregion. Many of these species are listed in Table 19 of companion product 1.1 for the Clarence-Moreton bioregion (Rassam et al., 2014). Species are assessed if their potential distributions are modelled by state government agencies (e.g. using MaxENT (Merow et al., 2013)). The PAE for the Clarence-Moreton bioregion includes the potential spatial habitat distribution of 186 species listed under the EPBC Act. This includes 139 plant, five invertebrate, seven frog, eight reptile, 14 bird and 12 mammal species. Note that the asset under consideration is the habitat of these species rather than the species per se, hence these assets are listed under the subgroup, vegetation. The habitats of 96 of the 186 species are considered water dependent for the following reasons:
- associated with drainage or soakage areas, wetland or permanent open water dependent
- associated with floodplain or riparian vegetation communities.
The remaining species are not considered to be water dependent because of ecological associations (they are associated with grassland, woodland, dry scrub, open forest, heathlands or rainforest vegetation communities, or rocky outcrops that are considered not water-dependent), upstream of potential coal seam gas (CSG) and coal mining developments, or it is a wide-spread migratory species that can move across regions. For some species there was insufficient habitat information to make a decision. Table 8 lists the rationale for inclusion in the water-dependent asset register for species’ potential habitat within each functional group.
Table 8 Examples of species listed under the Commonwealth's Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 within the preliminary assessment extent (PAE) of the Clarence-Moreton bioregion (based on a literature review of habitat requirements)
Data: Bioregional Assessment Programme (Dataset 1)
aAlthough examples of individual species are listed, bioregional assessments consider the potential impact to the habitat of species not individual species per se. Punctuation and typography appear as used in the asset database.
