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NINTI ONE PROJECTS
AUSTRALIAN COLLABORATIVE
RANGELAND INFORMATION SYSTEM
After nearly twelve years’, the Australian
Collaborative Rangeland Information System
(ACRIS), with which Ninti One and our
CRCs have been closely connected, wound
up on 30 June.
ACRIS arose out of the 2001 report
Tracking
Changes in the Rangelands
, which identified a
need to monitor changes at the continental
scale in the arid rangelands that occupy
three-quarters of Australia. Its task was to
collate and synthesise monitoring data to
assist the Australian Government, state
agencies and rangelands NRM groups to
report, plan investments for change and
evaluate their effectiveness.
ACRIS combines environmental, social
and economic data to develop a better
understanding of change in the rangelands.
For example, ACRIS has developed
world-first techniques that separate seasonal
variation as a driver of change, to determine
the effects of grazing management on land
condition. Other areas of work included
monitoring kangaroo populations, grazing
pressure and groundcover over very large
areas. It has supplied a key input into
climate adaptation work in the
rangelands by the research
cluster coordinated by
Ninti One.
Much of ACRIS’s data will
remain valuable for some
years to come and could
contribute to ongoing
State of the Environment
reporting. These data are
available on the federal
government website and are
also accessible from the Ninti One website at
nintione.com.au/acris .Ninti One is working
towards integrating this information into our
Remote Australia Online resource to provide
ongoing public access to the data.
Rangeland Cluster