Modelling distributions of species under environmental change - Findings factsheet

The Department of Agriculture, Water and the Environment relies on versatile, indicative species distribution models to show the likely distribution of species and their habitat to support environment decision making under the EPBC Act (1999). It is also desirable for these models to be extended to account for climate change, habitat changes and changes in the range of species, so that analysts, policy-makers and managers can predict future distributions of threatened species. We reviewed DAWE’s current practice of SDM, finding that its approaches are generally best practice, and used a literature review and some worked technical examples to make recommendations for some improvements.