Ground cover

Confidence indicator

Confidence indicator for groundcover: 4 out of 5

Indicator confidence is based on expert opinion and direct measures of error.

Further details on the scoring system (PDF, 527.3KB) and qualitative confidence rankings for each indicator are outlined in the supporting technical information.

Late dry season ground cover is reported for 2015–2016 for the entire region. Ground cover monitors pasture and plant litter relative to bare ground across most grazing lands. Areas with very high tree cover are not reported.

Target: minimum 70% cover by 2018.

Region	2015 result	2016 result
Great Barrier Reef	A 77%	A 80%
Cape York	A 84%	A 87%
Wet Tropics	A 88%	A 88%
Burdekin	B 69%*	A 74%*
Mackay Whitsunday	A 88%	A 90%
Fitzroy	A 80%*	A 84%*
Burnett Mary	A 89%	A 84%

*There are significant areas of low ground cover within the Burdekin and Fitzroy regions which were drought-declared.

Read the detailed Ground cover results (PDF, 4.2MB) and methods (PDF, 793.9KB) .