Soil Carbon Accounts - Experimental Account for NSW

This data cube presents accounts for Soil Organic Carbon (SOC) stocks and flows in New South Wales. These accounts form part of the Natural Capital Markets and Accounts branch Soil Ecosystem Services theme, which currently includes a Soil Organic Carbon physical stock account (SOC storage), and a Soil Organic Carbon physical flow account (SOC sequestration). These accounts are intended to help policy makers identify where to implement programs to maintain stocks of soil organic carbon and to increase carbon sequestration, as part of the NSW NetZero Plan. As well as accounts for physical stocks and flows, this suite of accounts includes a linked socio-economic profile. This profile comprises socio-economic information for ABS Statistical Area 2 (SA2) geographies for NSW and provides information on the socio-economic structure of the local economy of each SA2 and its major types of economic activity. The socio-economic profile is intended to help account users identify the economic activities and related land uses in each SA2 which may affect the extent and condition of the SOC stocks shown in the accounts.

How to use this report

All the accounts in this data cube are linked to a common spatial source based on ABS Statistical Areas and the different land uses of NSW. This means that the accounts can be filtered by each region using the top right-hand side filters on each page. A combination of outputs from each account can show us, for example, the stock of Soil Organic Carbon under different land uses, and its potential increase in 20 years under policies that generate a relative increase in vegetation by 10%.

What kind of policy questions was this account designed to answer?

• Where should policy efforts be focused to maintain NSW Soil Organic Carbon (SOC) stocks?
• What are the major land uses in areas with SOC stocks?
• Which areas have the potential to increase SOC sequestration through alternative land management practices?
• What land uses occur in regions that have a high potential for increasing SOC sequestration?
• Which activities in NSW regional economies may be affecting the extent and condition of SOC stocks and the rate of sequestration?