Data Product Identification

Title

Surface Cover

Alternate Titles

  • Formerly known as ‘Geoscape’.

  • Surface Cover 2m

  • Surface Cover 30m

Abstract

Surface Cover is a raster dataset representing land cover categories across Australia. Urban Surface Cover has coverage in pre-defined urban locations across Australia at 2 metre resolution, while the National Surface Cover has complete national coverage at 30 metre resolution.

Description

The Surface Cover theme consists of two layers: (1) Urban Surface Cover and (2) National Surface Cover. The theme consists of a digital pixel representation of the different types of ground cover of Australia. Each layer represents a different pixel resolution and coverage: Urban Surface Cover is a two-metre resolution covering pre-defined areas classified as “urban”, while National Surface Cover is a complete national coverage at a thirty-metre resolution.

Example of Surface Cover.

Data quality and potential capture timelines will vary across Australia based on three categories. Each category has been developed based on several factors defined by the population distribution (categorised based on population size), industrial/commercial activities, the probability of natural events (e.g. flooding) and the image source.

  • Urban (satellite source) - areas with a population greater than 200, or with significant industrial/commercial activity in a visual assessment, digitised from satellite imagery

  • Urban (aerial source) - areas with a population greater than 200, or with significant industrial/commercial activity in a visual assessment, digitised from aerial imagery

  • Rural – all other areas

Purpose

The purpose of the Surface Cover product is to represent different types of land cover for use by industry and government in geographic information systems and/or other information systems.

Topic Category

Raster spatial data.

Geographic Description

The spatial coverage of Surface Cover includes Australia’s land mass. The Bounding Box for this data is as follows:

  • North bounding latitude: -9˚

  • South bounding latitude: -44˚

  • East bounding longitude: 160˚

  • West bounding longitude: 100˚

Example of Surface Cover.

Geographic Extent Name

The States and Territories within Australia are represented by the following:

State or Territory Name

Abbreviation

New South Wales

NSW

Victoria

VIC

Queensland

QLD

South Australia

SA

Western Australia

WA

Tasmania

TAS

Northern Territory

NT

Australian Capital Territory

ACT

Note

Geoscape has adopted the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) definition of ‘Other Territories’ (OT). It includes the Territory of Christmas Island, Territory of Cocos (Keeling) Islands, Jervis Bay Territory and Norfolk Island. OT does not include any other external Territory.