The data in the Biodiversity section provides insights into the processes affecting the future persistence of ecosystems and threatened species as they seek to adapt to past disturbances and future climate change. 

This section also evaluates the likely impacts across NSW and across biodiversity under various climate scenarios in the absence of significant adaptation action. Where possible, the data identifies the most critical areas to protect, and which areas are the most beneficial for habitat improvement and restoration in order to maximise the ongoing persistence of NSW biodiversity under climate hazards. 

Biodiversity 

Patterns of biodiversity across space are governed by a range of environmental conditions to which species and ecosystems are individually adapted. Populations of species such as the koala can only persist in areas where temperatures are within a set band of physiological tolerance, where they can source water in dry times, where suitable feed trees species are present and where they can move across the landscape to access resources through changing seasons (DPE 2022). 

Specific environment requirements vary across species and ecosystems. With the event of climate change, areas are becoming less suitable for one suite of species and becoming more suitable for others. For effective adaptation, species need to undertake climate migrations to keep within their suitable habitat conditions. In many cases newly emerging habitats, if they can be reached, are insufficient to compensate for disappearing habitats, putting biodiversity under additional risk of extinction.

Biodiversity adaptation research

Many areas of government are engaged with protecting or restoring biodiversity as part of their business. This ranges from agencies with a strong focus on biodiversity, such as the Biodiversity Conservation Trust, Saving Our Species, the NSW Koala Strategy, the Botanic Gardens of Sydney, Taronga and NSW National Parks and Wildlife Service; but biodiversity is also a concern across a range of planning activities and local government. Many of these are already using versions of the biodiversity adaptation data, but there is scope to firmly embed climate science across a broader group. To this end we are working to improve access, usability and interpretability of the data.

The NSW Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water (DCCEEW) Biodiversity Adaptation Research has been developing a range of spatial products that seek to describe changing environmental conditions, forecast changing biodiversity distributions, and guide conservation action. 
 

Areas of research

The biodiversity data is provided across the following pages:

Baseline and projected environmental models – used to develop other data available in the hub, and are available to modellers and researchers to develop additional adaptation applications:

• Ecosystem-level Generalised Dissimilarity Modelling – transforms substrate, topography and climate variables to reflect species turnover under current and future climate (Data derived using NARCliM1.0 currently available with NARCliM2.0 variables underway)

Species-level assessment – comprises distribution mapping for the baseline and forecasted future distributions under climate projections, and mapping to support conservation efforts:

• Persistence in Landscapes – Assesses the capacity of NSW landscapes to support the persistence of 75 landscape managed threatened species under future climates.
• Koalas in the landscape data – Assesses the capacity of NSW landscapes to support the persistence of koalas under future climates. 

Ecosystem-level assessment – comprises distribution mapping for the baseline and forecasted future distributions under climate projections, and mapping to support conservation efforts:

• Biodiversity Impacts and Adaptation – provides insights on climate impacts to biodiversity and guidance on where and how to reduce climate-related risk to native ecosystems.
• Climate migration links mapping – highlighting the most preferred routes for biodiversity to adapt through climate migration. New data coming in 2026.
• Spatial resilience – measures landscape capacity to retain biodiversity under climate change and used to report the Biodiversity Indicator Program’s ecosystem resilience under climate change indicator. 

Biodiversity adaptation research

The development of the biodiversity adaptation domain began in earnest in around 2014 in NSW, with early versions using national climate modelling datasets, followed by the use of NARCliM scenarios. The work has been supported by the NSW Adaptation Research Program under the NSW Climate Change Adaptation Strategy, Saving Our Species Program and the NSW Koala Strategy and the Science and Insights Division of DCCEEW. 

Over its history, models have been refined, expanded and updated, capitalising on collaborations across government and research institutions, resulting in the maturation of the suite of products. The outputs of the domain are now being adopted across NSW government including helping to prioritise additions to the national park estate and informing restoration on private land.

As biodiversity faces elevated risks from the combined effects of past disturbance and climate change, it becomes increasingly critical that conservation efforts are well targeted and offer the best chance of providing optimal benefits from the investments made. For this reason, conservation and restoration efforts need to account for what is proving to be among biodiversity’s greatest threats – climate change.

Examples of climate assessment of biodiversity are explored below. Users are also directed to explore the datasets page to download data that is relevant for them and their focus area.

These products aim to transform decision-making around biodiversity conservation and restoration, shifting them from a static view of unchanging environmental conditions, to one of shifting suitability, where the greatest climate risks are avoided and opportunities for conservation and restoration are identified and acted upon. 
 

Further information and resources

State Government of NSW and NSW Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water, Koala habitat restoration guidelines: A practical guide to identify, connect and restore koala habitat in New South Wales, 2022.

Case study: Ecosystem level impacts of climate change – Biodiversity impacts and adaptation project data

Case study: Persistence in Landscapes data – Climate-informed species-level assessment for landscape-managed species

Case study: Koalas in the landscape data – Climate-informed species-level assessment for koala 

Case study: A generalised dissimilarity model of NSW: transformed environmental predictors 

State Government of NSW and NSW Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water, Climate change impacts in the NSW and ACT Alpine region: impacts on biodiversity (2019)

Harwood, T., Love, J., Drielsma, M. et al. Staying connected: assessing the capacity of landscapes to retain biodiversity in a changing climate. Landscape Ecology, 2022, 37, 3123–3139. doi: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10980-022-01534-5

Michael J. Drielsma, Jamie Love, Kristen J. Williams, Glenn Manion, Hanieh Saremi, Tom Harwood, Janeen Robb, Bridging the gap between climate science and regional-scale biodiversity conservation in south-eastern Australia, Ecological Modelling, 2017, Volume 360, Pages 343-362, doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolmodel.2017.06.022.

State Government of NSW and NSW Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water, NSW Biodiversity Outlook Report 2024

State Government of NSW and NSW Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water, Koalas in the landscape (report), 2025

State Government of NSW and NSW Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water, Biodiversity Impacts and Adaptation Project Report, 2022