This publication describes the objectives, strategy, findings and limitations of a continent-wide assessment of landcover disturbance undertaken by CSIRO staff on behalf of the Biodiversity Unit, Environmental Strategies Directorate, Department of the Environment, Sport and Territories (DEST), Canberra.
A distilled version is available as a printed report entitled 'Landcover disturbance over the Australian Continent: A contemporary assessment'. Biodiversity Series, Paper No. 7, available from the Department of the Environment, Sport and Territories, Canberra, Australia.
The research reported in this publication was supported in part by the Biodiversity Unit of DEST, and by the CSIRO Climate Change Research Program.
Both this document and Looking Around were refereed by colleagues and friends: Sarah Ryan, Barney Foran and Steve Morton of CSIRO Division of Wildlife and Ecology, Jo Mummery of the Biodiversity Unit of DEST, and Michele Barson, Bureau of Resource Sciences, Department of Primary Industries and Energy (DPIE).
The authors acknowledge this supportive and critical contribution.
In particular, we are grateful to Jo Mummery for her enthusiasm, wise guidance and firm management throughout the lifetime of the project. Finally, we express our appreciation to Michele Barson and Liz Poon for the provision of photographs, and to Bob Walker of GeoImage, Brisbane, for cooperation and help freely given in the use of the continental Landsat mosaic.
This CDROM was finalised with support of the CSIRO, Office of Space Science and Applications / Earth Observation Centre following the transfer of the authors to this organisation in 1995.