Skip to Content
Having difficulty reading?View site in high contrast×

Australia State of the Environment Report

Home
  • Overview
  • Drivers
  • Themes
  • Frameworks
  • Topics
  • Download
  • How & Why
  • About

Search form

Main menu

  • Overview
  • Drivers
  • Themes
  • Frameworks
  • Topics
  • Download
  • How & Why
  • About
Back to Home

Search

  • Advanced Site Search
  • Search by Region
  • Search Assessment Summaries
Show on map

Historic Content you are reading content from a previous reporting year.

Showing 30 of 120 results

Resilience of the land environment 2016

2016
Land
Resilience
At a glance

At a glanceAustralian landscapes have evolved with soils and vegetation in equilibrium with the climate and natural disturbance regime. Land management activities disturb that equilibrium. Although we may not see all of the ensuing changes, the subtle and slowly accumulating ones can be the...

Read more

Resilience of the coastal environment 2016

2016
Coasts
Resilience
At a glance

At a glanceResilience of the coastal environment includes its resistance to change and its ability to recover once disturbed. Resistance to change is linked to the maintenance of high biodiversity, which is expected to provide greater redundancy in ecological functions. Resistance can also...

Read more

Managing biodiversity for resilience

2016
Biodiversity
Resilience
Report Content
The ability of ecosystems to tolerate and recover from disturbance is a phenomenon that is vitally important to ...
Read more

Resilience of biodiversity 2016

2016
Biodiversity
Resilience
At a glance

At a glanceResilience is a key underpinning principle of Australia’s Biodiversity Conservation Strategy 2010–2030, as well as state and territory, and regional biodiversity strategies. The definition of resilience in biodiversity strategies and policies is still relatively ambiguous, and...

Read more

Pressures from livestock production

2016
Biodiversity
Pressures
Report Content

2016 Biodiversity Pressures Livestock production is the dominant land use in the extensive land-use zone of Australia (see the Land report for further information). It is considered a major contributing factor to the...

Read more

Box HER29 Western Australian Aboriginal heritage protection

2016
Heritage
Effectiveness of management
Case Study

The Aboriginal Heritage Act 1972 (WA) protects all Aboriginal heritage sites in the state, whether registered or not. Consent is required for any action that will adversely affect Aboriginal heritage sites. The expert Aboriginal Cultural Material Committee considers applications...

Read more

Risks to the built environment 2016

2016
Built environment
Risks
At a glance

At a glanceExtreme weather and natural events are considered the largest risks to the built environment. The likelihood of occurrence of these events is considered ‘almost certain’, with the impacts variable, depending on the risk. Despite the assessment that the built environment is quite...

Read more

Vegetation

2016
Land
Resilience
Report Content

2016 Land Resilience The resilience of vegetation is largely determined by our success or failure in maintaining resilience in landscapes and soils, as discussed in the Landscape and soil section. Maintenance of...

Read more

Pressures affecting the Antarctic terrestrial environment

2016, 2011
Antarctic environment
Pressures
Assessment summary

Antarctic environment Pressures Pressures on the terrestrial environment Antarctica Year...

Read more

Resilience

2016
Resilience
At a glance

Resilience is the ability of the environment to withstand or recover from a shock or disturbance. Although the concept of resilience was developed and is mainly used in relation to ecosystems, it is a valuable concept across the environment and in environmental management. Effective...

Read more

Risks to heritage 2016

2016
Heritage
Risks
At a glance

At a glanceAustralia’s heritage continues to be under-resourced, and at risk from both natural and human factors. Some risks, such as catastrophic fire or extreme weather events, may not be easily mitigated, and instead may require post-event response. Events such as the removal of statutory...

Read more

Resilience of the Antarctic environment 2016

2016
Antarctic environment
Resilience
At a glance

At a glanceAlthough organisms living in Antarctica have evolved to cope with severe events, it is challenging to measure their level of resilience and to predict how future climate change will affect Antarctic ecosystems. This is largely because our understanding of key parameters is still...

Read more

Figure BIO2 Pressures affecting species listed as nationally threatened under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999

2016
Biodiversity
Pressures
Graph

Pressures affecting species listed as threatened under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act Pressures affecting species listed as threatened under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act Proportion of EPBC listed...

Read more

Resilience of marine systems

2016
Marine environment
Resilience
Report Content

2016 Marine environment Resilience Tasmania Great Barrier Reef The concept of resilience is not straightforward, with definitions varying across social and scientific...

Read more

Overview of resilience of the antarctic environment

2016
Antarctic environment
Resilience
Report Content

2016 Antarctic environment Resilience Antarctica Natural disturbances are part of life in Antarctic ecosystems, and the native species can generally survive shock events because they have...

Read more

Figure BIO27 Distribution of (a) currently listed freshwater fish, (b) species identified as potentially vulnerable, (c) river condition and (d) freshwater fish research effort across Australia

2016
Biodiversity
State and trends
Map

Interact with mapDownload as pngDownload dataset Note: The scale represents the number of species of each category found in each catchment (a and b). The condition of Australian rivers (c) is adapted from Stein et al. (2002), with 1 being the most pristine and 8 the most disturbed...

Read more

Resilience of the built environment 2016

2016
Built environment
Resilience
At a glance

At a glanceFor the built environment, resilience refers to the capacity of the built environment to retain or recover its structure, functions and amenity after experiencing shocks. Historically, Australian cities have coped reasonably well with disaster events such as storms or floods, and...

Read more

Resilience of the marine environment 2016

2016
Marine environment
Resilience
At a glance

At a glanceResilience can be considered to be the capacity of a system to keep functioning even when disturbed. Current understanding of the resilience of Australia’s marine environment is limited because of the vast spatial extent of Australia’s marine ecosystems, their complexity, the many...

Read more

Pressures affecting the environment

2016
Pressures
At a glance

To understand the state and trends of Australia’s environment, it is necessary to consider both the historical pressures that have had a profound impact on the environment, and the contemporary pressures that directly and indirectly influence the state of the environment. Historical changes...

Read more

Approach - Atmosphere 2016

2016
Atmosphere
Report Content

2016 Atmosphere In this report, we assess the state of Australia’s atmosphere through an assessment of Australia’s climate and the effects of climate change, and ambient air quality. The approach adopted in this report follows that outlined in the...

Read more

Resilience of Australia’s air quality 2016

2016
Ambient air quality
Resilience
At a glance

At a glanceThe frequency, duration and severity of episodes of poor air quality in urban centres are influenced by short-term meteorological conditions, in combination with local topography and/or atypical emissions. Air quality is usually restored to acceptable levels once the immediate...

Read more

Resilience of Australia’s heritage 2016

2016
Heritage
Resilience
At a glance

At a glanceThe resilience of Australia’s heritage can be considered in relation to both individual heritage places and the total heritage resource. The ability of individual places or wider resources to withstand shocks depends on the nature of specific heritage values and their...

Read more

Vegetation

2016
Land
Introduction
Report Content

2016 Land Introduction Like the soil that supports it, vegetation is fundamental to ecosystem processes and human survival. Vegetation is vital for: producing oxygen for animal and human life maintaining air quality...

Read more

Box LAN13 HCAS—a new way to assess continuous variation in the condition of natural habitats for terrestrial biodiversity across whole regions using remote sensing data

2016
Land
Effectiveness of management
Case Study

In a recent article in Methods in Ecology and Evolution by Harwood et al. (2016), CSIRO reports on a novel approach to the difficulty in obtaining consistent and repeatable measurement of habitat condition for biodiversity across large areas, using remote sensing with limited...

Read more

Landscape and soil

2016
Land
Resilience
Report Content
... biota) is in some sort of equilibrium with the climate and disturbance factors such as bushfire. This equilibrium is ...
Read more

Freshwater species and ecosystems

2016
Biodiversity
State and trends
Report Content

2016 Biodiversity State and trends Murray Darling Tasmania Great Barrier Reef Australian Capital Territory Lake Eyre...

Read more

Overview of effectiveness of management of the built environment

2016
Built environment
Effectiveness of management
Report Content

2016 Built environment Effectiveness of management In April 2016, the Australian Government released the Smart Cities Plan (DPMC 2016). The plan outlines the Australian Government’s vision for cities—metropolitan and...

Read more

Pressures affecting the Antarctic environment 2016

2016
Antarctic environment
Pressures
At a glance

At a glanceThe climate of Antarctica is changing. Compared with conditions prevailing in the 1950s, parts of West Antarctica—particularly the Antarctic Peninsula region—have warmed. In East Antarctica, where Australia operates, temperatures have also increased, but to a lesser extent. Across...

Read more

Resilience of Australia’s climate 2016

2016
Climate
Resilience
At a glance

At a glanceOur planet is somewhat resilient to increasing carbon dioxide (CO2) levels because atmospheric CO2 is absorbed by the oceans. During recent decades, the oceans have taken up approximately 25 per cent of the annual anthropogenic CO2 emissions to the atmosphere. However, the...

Read more

Land: 2011–16 in context

2016
Land
Introduction
Report Content

2016 Land Introduction North East Coast Tasmania Lake Eyre The past 5 years has seen an ongoing relaxation of the effects of the millennium...

Read more

Footer logo

SoE 2016 logo

Australia State of the Environment 2016 has been prepared by independent experts using the best available information to support assessments of environmental condition, pressures, management effectiveness, resilience, risks and outlook.

This site is a major undertaking to improve the usability of SoE information. We are grateful for the support of users in our ongoing efforts to improve SoE reporting.  Please report problems with the site via our feedback page.

  • Abbreviations
  • Acknowledgements
  • Download
  • Drivers
  • Glossary
  • How & why
    • Reporting framework
    • Digital SoE
  • Overview
    • Headlines
  • Themes
    • Atmosphere
    • Built environment
    • Heritage
    • Biodiversity
    • Land
    • Inland water
    • Coasts
    • Marine environment
    • Antarctic environment
  • Accessibility
  • Contact us
  • Copyright
  • Disclaimer
  • Help
  • Privacy

Acknowledgment of Country

We, the authors, acknowledge the traditional owners of Country throughout Australia and their continuing connection to land, sea and community; we pay respect to them and their cultures and to their elders both past and present.

© Commonwealth of Australia 2017-2018

cc-by.png

Creative Commons logo