Access to CANRI resources (data, applications, portals) can be managed by permitting access to properly identified users to resources they are authorised to use. These processes are authentication and authorisation. CANRIs resources are diverse and dispersed, with different requirements for security and access. A user management system provides a central point for the management of the authentication and authorisation process.

Good Authentication services are necessary to protect data from unauthorised use and damage. It will enable secure upload and modification of data where appropriate, restricted access to sensitive or draft datasets, logging and monitoring of activity, authorised data downloads, document sharing and collaboration.

Basic user management systems implemented now will support the future requirements for Public Key Infrastructure and enable a phased introduction of authentication services.

For 2001-2002 four funded and 6 not-funded EOIs stated a need for user management services. Over half (10) of the respondents to the Web Services user requirements survey raised user access issues in their responses.

Some projects (Partner Plus, BioNet) are already using or developing rudimentary user access controls. A user management system incorporated into the CANRI framework will eliminate the need for ad hoc development or duplicated effort.

The objective of the ALGKEY project is to provide Internet-accessible interactive identification tools for the freshwater algal genera of New South Wales. These tools will be part of the Royal Botanic Gardens' PlantNET website and will complement the national Census of Freshwater Algae of Australia also presented on PlantNET.

To date there is no single key to the more than 200 genera of freshwater algae in New South Wales. 'Freshwater Algae' is a diverse group, including red algae, green algae such as desmids, diatoms and blue-green algae/bacteria. Identification currently relies heavily on overseas literature which is frequently in obscure scientific journals and often leads to misidentification of Australian algae. Identifications are also very difficult to achieve using traditional keys due to the complexity of terminology, and characters that are difficult to observe. ALGKEY will provide valuable, accessible solutions to these problems.

Algae are of major economic importance, particularly for intepreting river health and predicting and understanding algal blooms. Generic level identification tools will provide useful information for environmental management groups with the need for the expert knowledge required for species level identifications.

ALGKEY is being developed as a web-accessible, dynamic database that presents the most current knowledge of freshwater algae in Australia. It will include links to images; the Royal Botanic Gardens NSW Collections database; the National Australia's Virtual Herbarium project and the Census of Freshwater Algae of Australia. The latter directs the users to specialist literature.

This project will provide an integrated up-to-date software architecture model and system documentation of the various inter-relating components of key whole-of-government online systems relating to natural resources (CANRI), planning (iPlan) and biodiversity (BioNet).

As CANRI and related online systems grow, there is an increasing need for better technical coordination to ensure the framework as a whole continues to work efficiently and can be extended by different companies with minimal learning curve and maximum reuse of existing components. This project will establish a central repository to maintain the CANRI system architecture using industry-leading software development tools.

A facility will be added to the NSW Natural Resources Atlas and other CANRI applications to allow users to define a view of the Wildlife Atlas and add it as a layer to their map. This is the first major step in presenting an integrated public view of biodiversity and natural resources information, from Biodiversity Information Working Group and NRIMS agencies respectively.

The Biodiversity Information Network project has established a Biodiversity Information Working Group (BIWG) chaired by NPWS and with representatives from NSW Agriculture, Australian Museum, DLWC, EPA, NSW Fisheries, Royal Botanic Gardens, State Forests. Representatives from the agencies meet regularly to oversee and discuss the development of the project. A Project Manager currently coordinates the work of the Biodiversity Information Network and maintains linkages to CANRI, and this project proposal is to continue existing part-funding of that position.

The longterm aim of the Blueprint Reporting Online project is to make information available that reports on the progress of all catchment blueprints across NSW, produced by the catchment management bodies.

Given that the blueprint targets are still not finalised at the date of publication, nor are the indicators which report to them, this project will select pilot regions to work up a limited number of indicators for which information has been identified eg. salinity.

These datasets would be identified as CANRI priority datasets. The BRO site would sit within the existing blueprint web pages, and provide a context around each target indicator.

The 2002-03 project objectives are to:

• Establish the needs of CMBs through the DLWC Managers Resource Knowledge,
• Develop an application (BRO) using two or three pilot regions, and several targets for which information is already being provided,
• Compile and utilise a spatial dataset of test sites for targets (Blueprint and MDBC), linked to information,
• Provide a mechanism for viewing Blueprint-related documents,
• Gather feedback on the community response to the website and analyse the information, and
• Review BRO in line with community needs.

The promotion of BRO is included in the CANRI Marketing Strategy proposal.

There is potential to extend the project to cover blueprint management actions (natural resource management outputs and actions) spatially located, if these become available during the year. These are being captured through a data management system proposed by the Department of Land and Water Conservation.

Catalogues are one of the most complex areas for CANRI, with issues including authority, how things are classified, completeness and duplication across multiple catalogues. Technical and policy standards are still at an early stage of development and are still evolving separately in different communities, such as libraries and GIS.

Recognising this difficulty, this project will pilot the integration into CANRI web applications of access to a single high-priority non-CANRI spatial data collection: the Australian Natural Resources Data Library (ANRDL). The ANRDL is the repository for over 200 natural resources datasets created during the National Land and Water Resources Audit (NLWRA), and is managed by the Bureau of Rural Sciences (BRS) within the Commonwealth Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry (AFFA).

CANRI's major clients this year are the catchment management boards (CMBs). While most of the focus has been on natural resource information for catchment blueprint targets, boards are equally required to report on community capacity building outcomes. No mechanism currently exists to deliver this information. CLIO 2 is able to provide information on community capacity building, which relates to increasing the skills of the community to undertake natural resource management, and can be measured through skills, training, awareness, on ground works / projects and by working together in groups and networks. CLIO potential is enormous, as it provides a ready to use framework to store and access information about landcare groups & networks and landcare-type activities (eg bushcare, coastcare, dunecare, streamwatch) in NSW, and can deliver the information required to report on community capacity building outcomes.

CLIO can easily be expanded for use by the landcare community, CMBs and all natural resource management committees. This project aims to enhance CLIO by enabling the landcare community to maintain their own data and provide information required by the CMBs to implement management targets, outcomes and actions in the catchment blueprints, and for community consultation on plan development and implementation.

The current CLIO system uses DLWC Landcare Directory data. While CLIO has been successful in producing a statewide picture of landcare, it has little community ownership, and limited uptake by landcare support staff (especially those located outside DLWC) who still use stand-alone local databases.

Major limitations with CLIO are its inability to accept data online, and automatically capture spatial information on groups. To date this has been done manually, within DLWC. It is time consuming and causes major delays in getting new data onto CLIO.

The project will provide information for implementing and assessing the implementation of the catchment blueprints; allowing community support staff to enter data (including spatial data) online, improving the userfriendliness of the existing system (eg. add CANRI print functions to maps, search results, and add more search functions), delivering more information, providing a facility for the landcare community to enter their achievements online and providing summarised regional information. The project includes a regional training program.

Now that CANRI has developed the technical and policy framework, some focus needs to be directed at the user end of the business process. CANRI has ensured its long-term relevance in its use of technology and standards, however, its continued support and community uptake is not assured unless it delivers products that stakeholders need and want, and CANRI is adequately promoted.

This project covers the development, implementation and review of a communication strategy.

The communication strategy aims to:

• generally enhance the public perception and profile of CANRI,
• research and analyse potential markets, synergies and uses for CANRI,
• provide opportunities for the community to input to CANRI product development, and

• identify barriers for potential client participation.

The communication strategy will focus on CANRI's priority client, the catchment management boards, as well as other key clients such as - other natural resource management committees, local government and community groups involved in natural resource management.

Detailed analysis of web useability is covered in the Useability Project Proposal, which has a purely technical focus. The communication strategy will cover the coordination of useability forums/workshops only.

This project provides coordination of the entire CANRI program on behalf of the CANRI Board. It provides support for CANRI Board, project managers, Program Implementation Group and the Community Reference Group. Includes project management support and coordination of the CANRI Project Planning Process, administrative support, for Board/PIG/CRG Meetings and financial management of the program. This project funds the resources required for coordination and a general operational budget. This project ensures the CANRI website is maintained and the delivery of products and reporting via the website. It will include ongoing and update of core and priority data listing and coordination of online data serving.

Many Government agencies including the DLWC spend a significant and increasing amount of resouces providing information to other State and Federal reporting programs. Some of this data and information is to contribute to production of significant and ongoing publications such as the National Land and Water Resources Audit (NLWRA) and the State of Environment Report (SOE). Most of this information is supplied as a snap shot and requires a significant effort to produce and is quickly out of date. This project will provide the data to support these reports in a timely fashion and provide ongoing current data for other uses. The future NAP Salinity and Water areas will require similar natural resource information products

The data to be provided will specifically support the folowing areas;

NLWRA - Theme 1 Water Availablilty:

This will include Surface Water - water available, allocation, and efficiency of use and Groundwater - Acquifer level changes, water usage and salinity

SOE - Theme 5 Water:

This will include Surface Water - river basin water availability, extractions and water quality exceedence, and Groundwater availibility, extractions and water quality exceedence

This project will work with an information community, eg water quality or biodiversity (both the data custodians and key users) to help develop and promote a common approach to the "upstream" processes of data collection, management and serving. Attention to these processes is an under-developed area of the NRIM Strategy, but is essential to move beyond merely overlaying datasets in maps ("visual integration") and support analysis and more demanding and informative presentation formats such as graphs or indicator summaries (which require "comparing apples with apples").

The project will develop and document a methodology within the NSW natural resources context for developing and publishing standards for data collection, data management guidelines and common data models for use in online systems.

A gazetteer provides a means to specify a geographic object through use of well known names. Gazetteers are needed to navigate quickly and efficiently to targeted information or services available in CANRI. Without them, CANRI applications will be too difficult to navigate through or cross-link from other contexts.

This project will undertake a pilot between CANRI (DLWC) and DITM of a standards-based gazetteer service compatible with DITM's technical environment. This service will be tested in CANRI applications.

Local gazetteer copies (ie "non-authoritative" data) will be served and used in production CANRI applications in the interim for high priority feature types such as catchments and LGAs. If adherence to standards is pursued, it will be possible to roll out authoritative third party services when available. Both may be delivered through a gazetteer hosting service, which would be low cost to manage.

The project will include effort to develop, test, evaluate and refine user interfaces for gazetteer functions as these are not yet well-evolved or standardised.

Groundwater information users have an increasing requirement for access to data in a more timely manner. The use of Internet technology is considered one of the most effective tools in disseminating information to wider audiences. It is the intention of the DLWC to publish groundwater data collected from various sources so as to provide ready access to the information. Due to the nature of these datasets, it is planned that project development will take in three phases:

Phase 1 2002/03

• To publish groundwater summary information of stored data in the DLWC Corporate Database (GDS)
• These data will include:
• The location of all bores held by the DLWC in the corporate database
• The lithology and construction details of those bores
• Pump test results and water levels if available

Phase 2 (2003/04)

• To publish groundwater water quality data,
• To integrate the groundwater water quality dataset with other online DLWC water quality data.
• To integrate the GDIS with external agency data.

Phase 3 (As required)

• To publish reports and studies of groundwater programs (interpreted where appropriate) about groundwater data held by the DLWC.

To continue to add value to groundwater information available through the GDIS

This proposal has been jointly submitted by the NSW National Parks and Wildlife Service and the Green Web Sydney project to publish biodiversity data that will assist Sydney's local Councils and the general public make informed decisions about natural resource management. This project meets one of the primary CANRI assessment criteria by meeting the needs of local government and has the full support of the NPWS, Regional Organisations of Councils (ROCs) and the EPA (see attached letters of support).

The Green Web Sydney project (on behalf of the Sydney Regional Organisations of Councils) encourages a strategic and co-operative approach to natural resource mangement in the Sydney region. The Green Web Sydney project has collected an extensive data set pertaining to vegetation management in the Sydney metropolitan area. This data includes:

• Local plant communities
• Policies for the protection of native vegetation
• Development controls
• Reports and studies
• Community groups
• Plant sources such as seed collection sites and nurseries
• Remnant bushland in the LGA
• Proposed revegetation corridors across the Sydney region
• Past revegetation sites in each LGA
• Proposed revegetaion sites in each LGA
• Proposed revegetation sites across the Sydney basin

The above data will be displayed in tabular format and also geographically referenced through a GIS portal. It is proposed that a new domain would be created for this information as well as importing relevant data sets into the CANRI Natural Resources Atlas. The data will be held by both local government, the Regional Organisations of Councils (ROCs) and NPWS. An example LGA Profile Sheet showing the type of data already collected by the Green Web Sydney project has been attached to this proposal.

This data source will be accessed by local, regional and state government, community groups, Catchment Management Boards and funding bodies such as the Natural Heritage Trust and the Environmental Trust. The online provision of this data will improve the process of natural resource management and assist local government to meet its obligations under the State Biodiversity Strategy. The information will also assist funding bodies by ensuring that funding is distributed to programs that have been identified by council management plans and Catchment Management Board priorities.

The end goal of this staged project is to provide open access to water quality data collected by all State and Local government agencies in the Hawkesbury-Nepean River Catchment using a number of reporting formats.

The Department of Land and Water Conservation has nearly completed (expected first release June 2002) the first stage in the development of an application to deliver water quality information for the Hawkesbury-Nepean (H-N) River Catchment through the H-N Integrated Data Management System (IDMS). In this first stage, data available for this application were collected by five major Catchment stakeholders: NSW Department of Land and Water Conservation, NSW Environment Protection Authority, Hornsby Shire Council, Sydney Catchment Authority, and Sydney Water Corporation. It is estimated that 75% of all water quality data collected in the Catchment has been collected by these stakeholders.

The application is designed to be a search and query tool, which further extends to reporting functions. User output comprises: raw data extraction, summary statistics generation, and presentation of water quality data summary statistics on sub-catchment maps.

The current proposal intends to extend the data accessible by H-N IDMS application to all State and Local Government stakeholders collecting surface water quality data in the H-N River Catchment, so that nearly 100% of water quality data collected are made available or reported in summary. The further development of the H-N IDMS application will be complementary to the WQIS proposed work by drawing on the output regarding metadata framework development and providing reporting functionality for the WQIS Statewide Internet application - development of both applications (H-N IDMS & WQIS) will allow improved product quality and delivery for different aspects of serving water quality information on the Internet.

Data will be made available to the wider community through contacting participating State and Local Government agencies due to potential data sensitivities. Processes will be developed to make water quality data available to the wider community in the Hawkesbury-Nepean River Catchment in the final stage of the H-N IDMS development.

Funding from CANRI has enabled the RBG to incorporate about 3,000 images of herbarium collections into the RBG's NSW Collections database. These images are a web-accessible resource that can be used by the community to confirm plant identifications. This proposal seeks to complete the capture of herbarium images of the remaining plant species (about 6,000) that occur in the State.

The identification of rare and threatened plants or potentially weedy species requires rapid recognition. Community members who are responsible for managing natural resources (such as forests, parks and reserves) require a variety plant identification resources. The HerbLink project addresses the need for regional natural resource agencies and community groups to access authenticated plant material by providing images of these collections held by the National Herbarium of New South Wales (RBG).

Funding from CANRI has allowed the Royal Botanic Gardens Sydney (RBG) to bring online a list of liverworts that occur in New South Wales. This project will link each species name to specimens from the State that are held at the Gardens and provide authenticated distribution information.

The liverworts are part of the 'forgotten' non-vascular element of the flora. They form an important, but often unrecognised, component of many habitats such as the arid to semi-arid rangelands where they are crucial in soil binding and erosion control, as part of the soil crust. In many other habitats liverworts are essential in ameliorating run-off by the retention and slow release of large amounts of moisture and provide a habitat for numerous small creatures instrumental in nutrient recycling. The lack of a Flora and species lists for New South Wales has meant that previously this group has largely been ignored in any work that has been done.

The availability of species and distribution information is important for a range of agencies (e.g. NPWS, DLWC, EPA, EA), local government and environmental consultants that are required to report on biodiversity co-efficients. The RBG is seeking, with the assistance of CANRI, to provide such information in a format that is totally up-to-date, readily accessible to a large section of the community. The RBG maintains large resources in it's collection of dried plants and the database information on them. In this project we are seeking to provide further access to these resources and also to provide the basic structure to which more information can be attached in the future (images, interactive identification aids and descriptions).

This project will make available Internet accessible information about marine algal species and their distribution along the entire NSW coast, including Lord Howe Island and Norfolk Island. This State "seaweed" website will be part of PlantNET and so will be linked to the CANRI website. The site will allow government agencies, Universities, secondary schools, environmental consultants and community interest groups to access the latest data on "seaweeds" of the State.

Marine algae are the primary producers of the oceans, producing vital oxygen supplies and binding carbon in the form of carbohydrates, calcium carbonate and carbon dioxide. They also act as a major substrate for marine invertebrates and fin-fish lavae, as well as a food source for many such animals (esp. abalone). The National Herbarium of NSW has a marine algal database, which contains some 10,000 voucher-based records encompassing all known species (approx. 800) of the mainland coast from Tweed Heads to Cape Howe, in addition to the islands of Lord Howe and Norfolk.

The distribution of individual species and genera along the NSW coast, in addition to species lists for any estuary, marine park, aquatic reserve or marine bioregion, is becoming increasingly required by various government agencies (NSW Fisheries, DLWC, EPA, EA, NPWS), not least of which is MPA. Such information will be readily accessible via this website. The design and production of the website requires specialist computer technology and phycological skills to best align the interface between the basic database sets and a user-friendly façade.

The project will enhance the NSW Master Names List (MNL) to include validated species names not currently in the MNL. The MNL acts as a thesaurus to faunal information on the animals of New South Wales. Species Names are required to reside in the MNL to allow for the extraction of spatial data from the Australian Museum collection databases. The collection databases are the digitised specimen records of the faunal collections - approximately 16 million specimens. This represents the most data rich source on fauna of NSW.

The resources requested for this project will be used to extract species names from the collection databases, then validated and entered into the MNL. This will also enable quality control of the collection databases to ensure that more spatial information to be made available to external users.

The project will build on the work currently being undertaken to provide datasets and metadata for internet display that document current conservation information held by NSW Fisheries and the NSW Marine Parks Authority.

Data sets are GIS and relational databases describing the biodiversity and extent of various marine and estuarine environments in NSW. The project aims to inform government departments, estuary management committees, industry and the community on current initiatives in marine biodiversity conservation in NSW.

The core of the National Parks and Wildlife photographic collection will be made available through a searchable database on the Internet.

The NPWS collection comprises approximately 35,000 images of national parks and other protected areas, wildlife and management issues (such as fire fighting, construction of park facilities and infrastructure and pest control). The collection has been built up over many years and includes numerous historic images of early parks such as Royal inherited from the pre-NPWS park trusts.

The NPWS has purchased a photographic database and the collection is currently being culled and sorted to establish a higher-quality core of approximately 10,000 images to be digitised. A database structure has been established covering classification of the image, photographer, format, quality rating, a thesaurus of keywords. Under the proposed project:

1 data for each image will be entered into the database and label produced for the slide

2 images will be scanned at low resolution thumbnail size and at 350 pixels wide and the scans added to the database records

3 the database (currently held as a desktop edition) will be upgraded to a web-enabled version and will be provided on the NPWS Internet site.

The Native Vegetation Database includes a range of raw and derived data sources, principally floristic data, API spatial and attribute data, spatial and categorical data associated with the environmental stratification process, data on the derived floristic units, statistical descriptions of both floristic and API units, and reporting information. The proposed project will develop electronic linkages between these data themes and provide an accessibility tool for searching and viewing them on the CANRI web site.

The opportunity exists to significantly simplify these pathways into a single Web based spatial viewing and interrogation product where the community, agencies, researchers, landholders and other interested parties can extract the relevant information to the desired level of detail and complexity. The proposed project will transform and capture the specialised data bases referred to above, establish the necessary point and spatial keys and linkages, and then develop the viewing and reporting components of the Native Vegetation Database Application.

The new capability will also be used to deliver a revised CANRI homepage where users can find and access maps easily by navigating down a tree-structured dynamically expandable menu of data themes, and by selecting regions from scrolling lists.

Web mapping applications will also be enhanced with the tree-structured dynamic menu to allow users to add layers to the map view without searching.

The CANRI RAMS Far West builds on the multiagency Resource Assessment & Monitoring System (RAMS) Far West long term monitoring program. This collaborative program has been using satellite imagery to monitor and map the clearing and cropping activities, annually, within the NSW Western Division at a paddock scale since the early 1980s. The CANRI Far West project will correct GIS topological and misclassification errors in this extensive database, patch a number of temporal gaps, and delivery of a generalised set of grids to the public domain through the CANRI webmapping structure. In general, the project will validate the database to provide reliability appropriate for dissemination to the public.

Spatial and textual data serving information on change in rangeland vegetation abundance and composition and soil surface condition in seven major rangetypes in western NSW. The information is derived from a newtwork of 340 rangeland monitoring sites coordinated by DLWC. The monitoring network commenced in 1989 with sites being annually monitored. The database is maintained by the Far West Region of DLWC. The raw data represents the most comprehensive database of semi-arid monitoring data in Australia and the sole effort to monitoring long term change in semi-arid rangelands of New South Wales. Site data is amalgamated to be presented at a major rangetype ie Bluebush or Sandplain, Interim Biogeographic Regionalisation of Australia (IBRA), or Catchment Management Boundary (CMB).

The primary goals of data serving through CANRI are consistent with the objectives of the rangeland monitoring program - minimise rangeland degradation and support sustainable land use through management, policy and land administration and to enhance our understanding of rangeland ecosystem functioning. The program contributes to a number of State and National responsibilites and programs such as NLWRA,SoE, National Aussie GRASS Program, State and Federal Biodiversity Strategy, Western Lands Review/Enquiry, RASAC Exceptional Circumstances.

This project will focus on providing additional information from the major water agencies not yet part of the system. This information will be provided through a single Internet location by using a user friendly mapping interface. This site will be "the" principal location for obtaining a State view of river flow data and will be compatible with and linked to other natural resource data. A small amount of further develop of Internet based tools and systems to provide more and a greater range of natural resource data to the Internet community is planned.

The current RIIS Site is receiving in excess of 20,000 hits per month. The usage has increased steadily and doubled in the past year. This usage will increase as the site location becomes better known and additional agencies make data available through this portal. Further publication of multi agency information through a single user friendly interface will be delivered in this project. Current agencies supplying data are DWLC Manyvale Hydraulics and ACT EW. Agencies will be brought on-line progressively with priority givenin this phase of the project to river information from:

Sydney Catchment Authority

Snowy Mountains Authority

Bereau of Metorology

It is hoped to be able to identify local government bodies interested in publishing on this site.

The NSW Biodiversity Strategy website is aimed at providing current and accessible environmental information, guidelines and data on various biodiversity conservation projects funded by the NSW Biodiversity Strategy. The Strategy provides a policy framework for the protection, conservation, enhancement and management of biological diversity in NSW, and funds 59 projects undertaken by eight government agencies, working together with local government, community and industry..

The website will provide a cost-effective service to government agencies by centralising and linking information, which will support the management and assessment of biodiversity across all landscapes of NSW. Biodiversity information for which NPWS is custodian will be added to the Natural Resources Data Directory (NRDD) and made available via Natural Resources Atlas

This project bid includes a number of complimentary project areas which will all contribute to information to be accessed on the NSW Biodiversity Strategy website. These project areas are:

1. Biodiversity data serving

This will place outputs (final reports and/or spatial data) from projects already completed or due for completion within the 2002/2003 financial year on the website to improve the sharing and accessibility of environmental and natural resource information

1. NSW Ecosystems Database- interpretation and web site application

The ECOS Database is an MS ACCESS database for managing information on each of the NSW Ecosystems. The project of which it is a part has undertaken the generation of an ecosystems spatial data layer for NSW and this has been used as part of a partner project (State Conservation Monitoring Project) to quantify information on conservation effort across the State, bioregional and ecosstem basis. The ECOS database provides a structured environment for managing this new information with all other available information on each of the NSW ecosystems. This information includes additional descriptive data on ecosystem scale functions; spatial pattern of the ecosystem; dynamic processes; and descriptive data on such aspects of the ecosystem as the type and relationship of vegetation communities or endangered ecological communities to the ecosystem. The database can be searched based on natural and administrative boundaries including local government, State Electorate and catchment boundaries. A component of the database will deal with ecosystem monitoring and the cultural significance of the ecosystem. This project is a current priority of the NSW State Biodiversity Strategy.

The ECOS database is under development and population of the database will begin in July 2002. Whilst some funding is available to make the initial mapping and GIS data layer available over the web, the map will undergo review and refinement during the next 6-12 months concurrent with the population of the database

2. State Conservation Monitoring Project

SCMP (State Conservation Monitoring Project) currently has at it's core, a comprehensive GIS data coverage of ecosystems (western NSW) and landscapes (eastern NSW) across NSW and a conceptual package which has developed priorities for conservation effort at the State-wide level. The SCMP currently has an increasingly broader capacity to track conservation effort (and gaps in conservation effort) across the State.

The objective of this project is to incorporate newly developed ecosystems mapping for eastern NSW into the SCMP and recast priorities and monitoring of conservation effort and to make the updated information community accessible with more sophisticated interpretation on a bioregional and catchment basis. In doing so a more consistent interpretation of priorities and effort across NSW is offered in particular to regional natural resource committees as well as a more sophisticated interpretation. The SCMP is an agreed priority of the NSW State Biodiversity Strategy, it addresses the need for regional committees and State and regional natural resource agencies to have access to information on conservation priorities at the ecosystem scale and in a State-wide context and to track conservation effort.

This project builds on the achievements of previous phases by providing interactive maps of soil and land features, limitations and hazards online, throughout NSW, for Catchment Management Boards and Local Government agencies. These products are also highly applicable to other users such as land managers, community groups (e.g., Landcare) and Government agencies that need to be able to access information about land capability, suitability, limitations and hazards.

Currently these products are time-consuming to develop and difficult to distribute, as they are produced as hard-copy or as specialised GIS files. However, using the enhancements to the SPADE+ spatial viewer (being developed under CANRI in FY 2001-2002) embodied in this proposal, Internet users will be able to interactively generate their own thematic maps of soil and land issues, or access a range of pre-generated maps, using data sourced directly from DLWC's Soil And Land Information System (SALIS). This data, comprising a series of datasets that together form a layer of best-quality soil map information across NSW, will be provided as part of the SPADEturbo project.

Furthermore, a range of summary roll-up products will be accessible that interpret and summarise thematic information on the basis of CMB's, LGA's or other administrative entities in the form of graphs, charts and other visualisation tools. Users will also be able to use these maps in combination with other datasets from both DLWC and the CANRI framework.

This project will widen the available technology choices for creating web mapping applications that can integrate and present CANRI data.

Despite the CANRI strategy of encouraging and adopting open technology standards, stakeholders are having difficulty integrating CANRI resources into their organisation's technology environment. This is partially due to the lack of clear and thorough CANRI technical documentation, which should be resolved by the completion of the 2001-2002 "DIY Manual" project. However, it is also due in part to the immaturity of standards in the web mapping area, which means that the choice of standards-compliant products available for CANRI participants is still fairly restricted.

Several GIS companies, including ESRI, are now offering standards-compliant products to serve GIS data on the web (OpenGIS Web Map Servers and Web Feature Servers) and some, including ESRI and Intergraph, are offering "thick" Java or desktop GIS clients to use data from these servers. However, there is still an apparent lack of choice in web application software that can act as a standards-compliant client to mapping servers-ie software that can integrate maps or GIS data from remote WMS or WFS servers and present them in interactive mapping websites customised to stakeholders' requirements.

The Tech Choice project will address this issue by working with CANRI stakeholders and the GIS and website management software industries to clarify the options available and encourage the development and implementation of further technology choices, which may include software products, application hosting services and enhanced developer skills.

The CANRI website and its key applications will be subjected to formal user testing and the results used to guide a round of improvements to the user interface.

CANRI websites are intended to allow users to access, view and manipulate natural resource data in maps and other formats. Useability for CANRI means meeting the user's requirements and expectations with regard to:

• the depth of functionality available; and
• presenting this functionality in a clear and simple way.

The existing Natural Resources Atlas, developed in 1999, is too difficult for most web users. It is now being replaced with a new interface built using the Web Map Composer. This new interface introduces a new generation of technology which needs to be evaluated and refined from a useability perspective.

Areas for testing and refinement will include the new printable map function and map zoom/pan tools.

This project will also evaluate other existing CANRI applications such as the NRDD, SPADE, RIIS or the WIldlife Atlas, where these offer functionality not yet incorporated into CANRI's generic application-building tools. The results of this evaluation will be fed into other projects intending to build on this functionality either in generic tools or one-off applications.

The hierarchically-structured CANRI home page and map layer selection control which are to be developed under the Open Apps project will also be evaluated under this project if they are ready in time.

The project will deliver web-based interactive keys on insects associated with plants in New South Wales. Keys will be produced in LUCID software to the genera of leaf beetles and stinkbugs of New South Wales. The products will be delivered through the CANRI framework. Additionally, verified information on host plants of these insects will be provided through the FAUNANET framework (via CANRI). The keys will be presented in user-friendly format so that they will be of use to a wide range of stakeholders, including professional scientists, environmental groups, and landholders.

Higher plants and their associated insects are a major component of the diversity of life and the Australian Museum has a rich source of information on the identity of herbivorous insects (leaf beetles and stink bugs) and their host plants. Leaf beetles and stinkbugs are important functional groups in natural ecosystems, agroecosystems, and forestry ecosystems. Furthermore, they are being increasingly important as biodiversity indicators and are routinely used as such by the Australian Museum.

This project will maximise accessibility of Web Feature Server (WFS) client and server technologies to CANRI agencies, and improve functionality for end-users by WFS-enabling CANRI applications. The outcomes of the WFS pilot (see Other Information below) will be made operational and candidate WFS technologies assessed as they become available.

Web Feature Server (WFS) is a draft industry standard for serving vector data (points, lines and polygons) to the web for use by applications on remote websites. Through this project, WFS support in the CANRI framework will provide a range of new and much-needed functionality to CANRI users in a cost-effective, reusable, extensible and flexible way.

Avenues for exploiting WFS capability will be reassessed following the pilot, but could be applied to biodiversity, water quality, or property and cadastral data.

A high priority application which could benefit from WFS technology is the presentation of "indicator" summaries. The provision of a standard mechanism to derive indicators from (or at least provide a link to) the underlying data sources is critical.

WISE (Water Information System for the Environment) is an innovative software package for managing information on water for an entire catchment. WISE is a collection of everything published on a catchment linked to the catchment's wetlands or estuaries, rivers and creeks or the catchment itself with multiple links and multimedia material. It has, at its core, several databases (primarily bibliographic, content and sites) and a multimedia system with photographs, videos and sound files. The system is produced as a CD-Rom with the Macquarie Catchment currently on sale and the Hacking, Barwon-Darling, Namoi, Gwydir, Paroo and Warrego to be launched in the next few months. New projects include the Illawarra and Lower Darling. The project was an agreed priority of Water CEOs. It will contribute to CANRI principles and the New South Wales Government Water Reform, National Action Plan on Salinity and the Biodiversity Strategy. It was a finalist in the National Banksia Environmental Awards of 2000 for Innovation.

Phase 1 2002/03

• To publish state wide water quality information from key datasets, including Keysites Program, stored in the DLWC Enterprise Database and use the Key Sites program as a model for publishing other project datasets
• To link to other NSW water quality datasets (eg: Environmental Protection Agency, Local Governments in Hawkesbury Nepean Catchment "IDMS", Sydney Water).
• Site documentation

Phase 2 (2003/04)

• To integrate the WQIS with other DLWC water quality datasets eg Streamwatch.
• To integrate the WQIS with external agency data.

Phase 3 (As required)

• To publish reports and studies of water quality programs (interpreted where appropriate) about water quality data stored in the EDB.

To continue to add value to water quality information available through the WQIS

Note: This proposal will be refined shuttle following current discussions to include specific pilot regions and defined deliverables.

1. a means of accessing state-government and other datasets specific to their needs, and presenting these to their local communities on the Internet
2. a mechanism to see CANRI’s potential for their business, and
3. a mechanism to put their spatial data on the internet, and presenting these to their local communities on the Internet

This project would comprise these three components:

1. Accessing CANRI maps

The LGSA Regional Portals Project* would utilise CANRI mapping as a generic spatial information service, developing an interface suitable for local communities (eg. a selection facility by each local government area). The potential for this site is to provide information for activities such as tourism, natural resource planning and development approvals, customer enquiries and environmental education programs.

*The LGSA Regional Portals Project is dependent on the LGSA obtaining funds from Networking the Nation Program (NTN) in June 2002.

2. Pilot and User Testing

• upload their spatial information and data held in their offices to the local-e network to share with CANRI, and

utilise automated mapping technology to build the spatial aspect of any e-business they may nominate, or simply to make it available to the public on their website.

The project links several Fisheries datasets via the existing CANRI geographic interface (NRA or WMC). Data will be organised using river catchments as the primary spatial unit, but in some cases will be further divided into zones within the catchment. Datasets to be provided will include; wiers/barriers, fish stocking locations, actual and predicted fish communities, survey site locations and administrative zonations such as fishing closures and declared trout waters.

By selecting the catchment of interest the user is provided with a list of available datasets. Choosing a dataset generates symbols or polygons within the catchment, each of which is linked to a table that provides further information about the feature selected (Eg. height & width for weirs, species information, gazettal information for closures). Further links to specific related information will also be incorporated, where feasible.

Species data will be divided into zones within each catchment where geographical or climatic factors cause significant intra-catchment variation.