ENVIRONMENT — VEGETATION COVERAGE — SWAN COASTAL PLAIN

3333. Hon Alison Xamon to the Minister for Agriculture and Food:

I refer to Department of Water and Environmental Regulation (DWER) analyses of remote sensing images that identify vegetation changes (as per the answer to part 10 of question on notice 469 answered on 6 December 2017), and I ask:

(a)  can these analyses be used to estimate vegetation coverage on the Swan Coastal Plain;

(b)  if yes to (a), could the Minister please provide estimates of vegetation coverage on the Swan Coastal Plain as a snapshot at five-year intervals from 1990;

(c)  can these analyses be used to estimate native vegetation coverage (solely) on the Swan Coastal Plain; and

(d)  if yes to (d), could the Minister please provide estimates of native vegetation coverage on the Swan Coastal Plain as a snapshot at five-year intervals from 1990?

Hon Alannah MacTiernan replied:

(a)  Yes.

(b)  The below table shows vegetation cover of the Swan Coastal Plain (SCP) estimated using remote sensing imagery. The column “Satellite coverage of the SCP (%)” shows the percentage of the region with valid satellite data to estimate vegetation cover.

* less than 90% of the SCP was included in this estimate

(c) No.

(d) Not applicable.