Biodiversity data and information management

Program: Biodiversity Data and Information Management

Projects

Leading the digital journey

Since 2016, The Western Australian Biodiversity Science Institute (WABSI) has led a strong collaboration of senior stakeholders from industry, government, regulators and the science community, to build a data sharing and access culture.

The collective efforts, led by WABSI, are enabling a better understanding of the cumulative environmental impacts of an action, on a region over time. They are also enhancing the access, aggregation, interpretation and management of biodiversity information collected in Western Australia.

Enabling the creation of an information asset for WA

Helping to inform policy, planning and regulatory decisions

Biodiversity is a natural capital asset with immense economic and cultural significance for Western Australia. The need to balance economic activities that provide societal wealth, with community expectations and an increasing public focus on environmental sustainability, presents an opportunity to lift understanding and confidence in the ability to forecast the future state of our environment and the biodiversity within it.

WABSI priorities

Create and lead a culture of shared expertise, common data standards, policies and incentives for data sharing and support a system for persistent storage and archiving of data.
Mobilise biodiversity data from all available sources (Environmental Impact Assessment, government agencies, Natural Resource Management groups, the research community, community groups etc.) to make the data promptly and routinely available to the entire biodiversity community.
Curate and manage surveys into data layers that give individual surveys context and meaning, enabling this data to be used as evidence.
Deliver (or enable) informed, trusted analytical and assurance outcomes using shared solutions and technologies.
Support optimised policy and decision making, transparent, efficient assessment and assurance processes as well as informed environmental adaptive management frameworks to provide investment conﬁdence and an informed community.