The Northern Territory has reached a milestone in its new Regional Ecosystem and Landscape Mapping program (REALM), with the release of the conceptual mapping framework and Level 1 mapping product.

The foundational releases mark the beginning of a Territory-wide approach to mapping ecosystems and landscapes, and set the stage for better land management, conservation planning and sustainable development across the NT.

The Regional Ecosystem and Landscape Mapping (REALM) conceptual framework establishes a five-tier hierarchy (plus a sixth field-based level) for organising and classifying the landscapes of the Northern Territory.

According to the NT Government, the structure:

• Provides a systematic, scalable way to understand the Territory’s natural environments;
• Supports both high-level regional analyses and detailed, on-ground assessments;
• Creates a consistent mapping language compatible with other Australian jurisdictions; and
• Ensures users can access the level of detail most relevant to their work.

The first completed mapping product, Level 1 REALM regions, represent the broadest scale of classification within the hierarchy. Key features include:

• It divides the NT into 31 large, geomorphologically defined regions;
• It provides the first Territory-wide depiction of REALM’s structured landscape divisions;
• It builds upon and advances earlier regionalisations used across Australia; and
• It offers a consistent platform for future sub-regional and landscape-scale mapping.

The level 1 release provides an essential spatial overview of NT landscapes, supporting strategic planning, environmental assessment and early-stage regional land-use considerations.

Together, the framework and Level 1 mapping will bring consistency to land resource information across the NT, improve our capacity to understand, map and manage the environment, and support government agencies in regulatory and service roles.

They will also give landholders, planners and industry a robust foundation for sustainable decision-making, and help identify regional opportunities while protecting key environmental assets.

Work is already underway on Level 2 sub-regional mapping across the NT and Level 5 detailed mapping within the Pine Creek REALM region.

As REALM develops, more layers of the hierarchy will be completed and released, gradually building a picture of NT ecosystems at multiple scales.

The Level 1 spatial data can be accessed and downloaded via NR Maps.