Capability 2.2.4
Environment & Resources
Definition
Data describing natural systems and resource use, including meteorological, biodiversity, water, air quality, agricultural, mining, and utilities datasets used for energy and resource optimisation.
Examples
- Atlas of Living Australia (ALA) (CSIRO/NCRIS)
- National Environmental Science Program (NESP) – Climate Systems Hub Data
- Water Quality Major Open Data Collection (Bureau of Meteorology/Water Information Research and Development Alliance)
- Australian Mineral Deposits Database & Australia's Identified Mineral Rresources (Geoscience Australia)
- Australian Renewable Energy Mapping Infrastructure Project (AREMI) – renewable energy mapping datasets
- Australia Ocean Data Network (AODN).
Indicators
- Temporal depth and consistency of national environmental monitoring datasets (e.g. decades of satellite or sensor records)
- Alignment with international data standards Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF)
- Standardised metadata schema
- Federated compliance and scalability (legal and institutional interoperability)
- FAIR compliance (findable, accessible, interoperable, reusable)
- CARE compliance (collective benefit, authority to control, responsiblilty and ethics)
- Provenance and lineage tracking
- Consent frameworks
- Onshore hosting and secure processing environments (e.g. SURE)
- Clear licensing
- Longevity and version control
- Domain specific data standards
- Machine readiness formatting
National AI Plan
PLAN COMMITMENT
Limited commitment
See general comment at 2.2.1 (Language, Arts, Culture & History). Supports environmental and natural resource data through earth observation data investments (see 2.3.3 Geospatial) and environmental monitoring case studies, including Kakadu wetlands (p15) and Tiwi Islands ranger programs (p26), but does not include targeted policy initiatives specific to environmental and natural resource datasets despite Australia’s high advantage. Limited commitment by government in the plan represents a missed opportunity. More should be done to leverage this very high agency. This is one of 8 capabilities over which Australia wields very high agency; national priority should be given to maintaining this agency and leveraging it internationally to offset gaps in other capabilities of low agency.
Stocktake
Atlas of Living Australia (ALA). CSIRO / Australian Government. Accessed October 2025. https://www.ala.org.au
Water Quality Major Open Data Collection. University of South Australia / SA Water / Water Research Australia. Accessed October 2025. https://researchdata.edu.au/water-quality-major-data-collection/562002
National Environmental Science Programme – Climate Systems Hub (NESP). Australian Government / Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water (DCCEEW). Accessed October 2025. https://www.nespclimate.com.au
ACCESS-ESM1.5 model output prepared for CMIP6. CSIRO Data Access Portal / Earth System Grid Federation. Accessed October 2025. https://data.csiro.au/collection/csiro:51901
Australian Renewable Energy Mapping Infrastructure (AREMI). CSIRO Data61 / Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA). Accessed October 2025. https://www.arena.gov.au/projects/aremi-project/
Australian Mineral Deposits Database (OZMIN / AIMR). Geoscience Australia (Australian Mines Atlas). Accessed October 2025. https://data.gov.au/data/dataset/34247a24-d3cf-4a98-bb9d-81671ddb99de
Bureau of Meteorology observations & forecasts. Australian Government / Bureau of Meteorology. Accessed October 2025. https:/www.bom.gov.au
Water Data Online. Australian Government / Bureau of Meteorology. Accessed October 2025. https://www.bom.gov.au/waterdata/
Australian Water Observations from Space (WOfS). Geoscience Australia. Accessed October 2025. https://www.data.gov.au/data/dataset/719a5433-2af0-4601-8036-a03f77199442?
Is the Stocktake missing evidence?
Share additional information for potential future Assessments