Land Accounts
The national land accounts bring together information on Australia's land cover, use and value and present this information in a way that is consistent over time and space.
Presenting information this way enables better understanding of the connection between economic activities and environmental processes that take place across Australia's landscape. This includes urbanisation, crop and animal production, deforestation and the use of water and land resources.
This information forms a foundation for improved decision-making and helps build other spatially-explicit accounts, including ecosystem accounts.
The national land accounts can be used to inform policy and operational decision-making, including:
- environmental monitoring, including land cover, change in vegetation - helping to understand where and when a change occurred
- policy or program evaluation - helping to understand whether an activity led to the intended impact
- decision support and trade-off analysis - helping to understand whether alternative land uses, such as agricultural production and urban development, will lead to better environmental and economic outcomes,
The first national land accounts for Australia are expected to be released by the ABS in the first half of 2021. Further analysis and reporting will be made available in late 2021.
DAWE and its Commonwealth partners (ABS, ABARES, Geoscience Australia and CSIRO) are working closely with academia and state and territory governments on an innovative methodology for account development that will ensure the national land account represents the best possible picture of Australia's land.
