Plant Communities of the South Eastern Highlands and Australian Alps within the Murrumbidgee Catchment of New South Wales Version 1.1 Cover photo: Riparian and dry forest plant communities adjacent to the Murrumbidgee River, Scottsdale Reserve (Bush Heritage Australia). Photographer: Rainer Rehwinkel The Office of Environment and Heritage NSW (OEH), part of the NSW Department of Premier and Cabinet, has compiled this report in good faith, exercising all due care and attention. OEH does not accept responsibility for any inaccurate or incomplete information supplied by third parties. No representation is made about the accuracy, completeness or suitability of the information in this publication for any particular purpose. OEH shall not be liable for any damage which may occur to any person or organisation taking action or not on the basis of this publication. Readers should seek appropriate advice when applying the information to their specific needs. This report should be cited as: Office of Environment and Heritage (2011) Plant Communities of the South Eastern Highlands and Australian Alps within the Murrumbidgee Catchment of New South Wales. Version 1.1. Technical Report. A Report to Catchment Action NSW. NSW Office of Environment and Heritage; Department of Premier and Cabinet, Queanbeyan. © Copyright State of NSW and the Office of Environment and Heritage. The State of NSW and OEH are pleased to allow this material to be reproduced in whole or in part for educational and non-commercial use, provided the meaning is unchanged and its source, publisher and authorship are acknowledged. Released by: Office of Environment and Heritage NSW 11 Farrer Place PO Box 733 Queanbeyan NSW 2620 Phone: (02) 6229 7000 (switchboard) OEH 2011/0613 August 2011 2 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Project Coordination Data Analysis Rob Armstrong Ken Turner Keith McDougall Rob Armstrong Field Survey data collection Report Writing Contractors Rob Armstrong BlueGum Consulting (Tom O’Sullivan) Ken Turner David Eddy (privateer) Keith McDougall Ecological Australia Pty Ltd. (Bruce with assistance from Mullins, Martin Sullivan, Phil Gilmour, Rainer Rehwinkel Ryan Smithers) James Crooks Greening Australia (Bindi Vanzella, Geoff Robertson Nikki Taws) John Briggs OEH Internal Staff Greg Baines Ken Turner James Crooks Rainer Rehwinkel Rob Armstrong John Briggs Geoff Robertson Grassland Classification Rainer Rehwinkel All report writers provided a valuable and continuing resource in refining the plant community classification. Additionally, the contribution of advice, assistance and plant community review of Dr John Benson (Botanic Gardens Trust), Greg Baines, Margaret Kitchin, Emma Cook and Luke Johnston (Australian Capital Territory: Territory and Municipal Services – ACT TAMS), and Michael Doherty (CSIRO Sustainable Ecosystems) has been greatly appreciated. Unless otherwise indicated, those acknowledged are employees of the Office of Environment and Heritage NSW. This project was funded through Catchment Action NSW. ACT TAMS provided additional funds and survey coordination to fill spatial and thematic gaps in the floristic dataset within the ACT. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY The aim of this project was to produce, consistent with the NSW Native Vegetation Mapping Strategy (DECC 2009), a plant community classification to be used in the development of a native vegetation map for the Murrumbidgee catchment. This classification provides robust plant community descriptions for remaining areas of the Murrumbidgee catchment in which the NSW VCA plant community types are yet to be completed (i.e. the South Eastern Highlands and Australian Alps bioregions). The plant community classification developed as part of this report will contribute to the NSW VCA and the NSW Government’s assessment tools such as the Property Vegetation Plan (PVP) developer and the Bio-banking Vegetation Types database. The study area comprised the South Eastern Highlands and Australian Alps bioregions within the Murrumbidgee catchment of NSW and the ACT, covering 1,741,872 hectares. Although the area had existing plant community classifications, these were localised or focussed on particular types of communities (e.g. forest ecosystems). The current classification used data from previous classifications and new data to create a comprehensive classification for the study area. Whilst 78% of the State of New South Wales (NSW) is covered by the NSW Vegetation Classification and Assessment plant community classification (NSW VCA, Benson et al. 2006, Benson et al. 2010), approximately 22% of the State lacks an accepted consistent plant community classification. The vast majority of the States population resides within this area, and as such this part of the State is subject to the vast majority of land development pressures on biodiversity. A consistent plant community classfication forms the backbone of the NSW government’s biodiversity regulatory tools and can be used to develop seamless vegetation map products to adequately inform conservation assessment and natural resource management (NRM) decision making. The project aids in meeting NRM objectives outlined in the State Plan (NSW Government 2010) to “protect our native vegetation, biodiversity, land, rivers and coastal waterways”, as the information will be used in NSW and ACT government biodiversity regulatory tools, to target investment for conservation outcomes and to provide accurate information for use in local and regional scale planning. GLOSSARY ACT Australian Capital Territory API Aerial Photograph Interpretation CMA Catchment Management Authority CRA Comprehensive Regional Assessment CSIRO Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation EEC Endangered Ecological Community EPBC Act 1999 Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 (Commonwealth) GIS Geographic Information System IBRA Interim Bioreographic Region of Australia NC Act 1980 Nature Conservation Act 1980 (ACT) NP National Park NR Nature Reserve NRM Natural Resource Management NSW New South Wales NVIS National Vegetation Information System SCA State Conservation Area SCIVI South Coast – Illawarra Vegetation Integration SF State Forest TEC Threatened Ecological Community TSC Act 1995 Threatened Species Conservation Act 1995 (NSW) TSR Travelling Stock Route NSW VCA NSW Vegetation Classification and Assessment VG Vegetation Group VIS Vegetation Information System TABLE OF CONTENTS 1. INTRODUCTION .........................................................................................1 1.1 Vegetation classification and mapping in NSW...........................................................1 1.2 Project aims...................................................................................................................1 2. STUDY AREA..............................................................................................3 2.1 Climate...........................................................................................................................3 2.2 Biophysical Landscapes...............................................................................................4 2.3 Settlement and Landuse ...............................................................................................7 2.4 Previous botanical studies............................................................................................7 3. METHODS...................................................................................................9 3.1 Terminology...................................................................................................................9 3.2 Floristic and other information .....................................................................................9 3.2.1 Use of existing classifications 9 3.2.2 Use of existing datasets 10 3.2.3 Additional survey 11 3.3 Data Analysis............................................................................................................... 12 3.4 Community description............................................................................................... 14 4. RESULTS ..................................................................................................16 4.1 sampling ...................................................................................................................... 16 4.2 data analysis................................................................................................................ 16 5. DISCUSSION.............................................................................................22 6. PLANT COMMUNITY DESCRIPTIONS ....................................................24 Formation: Alpine Complex.............................................................................................. 24 Class: Alpine Herbfields 24 a6: Dwarf Buttercup - Mud Pratia - Tufted Sedge herbfield of shallow depressions of the Australian Alps Bioregion ............................................................................................ 24 a14: Prickly Snow-grass - Tufted Sedge subalpine valley grassland of the Australian Alps Bioregion............................................................................................................. 26 a22: Snow-grass - Herbfield Celmisia - Woolly Billy-button grassland of the Australian Alps Bioregion............................................................................................................. 27 a30: Fine-leaved Snow-grass - Dwarf Snow-grass - Silver Carraway - Granite Buttercup grassland