What data is included?
Victoria Unearthed includes information from a range of existing government sources including up-to-date data from the Environment Protection Authority (EPA) Victoria.
*IMPORTANT NOTE: From 1 July 2021 some EPA data has changed due to new legislation:
- Data on new sites with Environmental Audits, Licenced Sites and Priority Sites (notices) under the Environment Protection Act 2017 after 1 July 2021 is not currently available in Victoria Unearthed.
- Information on new audits and permissions (including licences) issued under the Environment Protection Act 2017 is available on the EPA public registers
- The current Priority Sites Register is available on the EPA website
EPA and DELWP are working to incorporate new EPA data in Victoria Unearthed.
Victoria Unearthed includes five key datasets from EPA .
- Priority Sites Register – sites where EPA has issued a cleanup notice or pollution abatement notice
- EPA Licenced Sites – sites licenced by EPA
- EPA Environmental Audits – sites with completed environmental audits
- Groundwater Quality Restricted Use Zone – sites that have restrictions of the use of groundwater
- Victorian Landfill Register – locations of current and historical landfills
It also includes the Environmental Audit Overlays from the Victoria Planning Provisions, indicating where an audit may be required before development.
It also includes Historical Business Listings - information from Victoria's Sands & McDougall business directories (old 'phone books') from around every 10 years between 1896 and 1974, which until recently were held at State Library Victoria in hard copy only.
Click the links above for contact details and more information about each dataset.
Disclaimer
Please click the link below to read the Victoria Unearthed disclaimer.
All data included in Victoria Unearthed is available for direct download and via web services for use in desktop GIS software from DataVic and Spatial Datamart:
- EPA datasets are available on DataVic
- The Environmental Audit Overlay layer is part of the planning scheme overlays data available at https://discover.data.vic.gov.au/dataset/planning-scheme-overlay-vicmap-planning
- The Historical Business Listing dataset (Sands & McDougall) is available for download in multiple formats at data.vic or Spatial Datamart.
The most current EPA data can also be downloaded directly from EPA:
- Information on new audits and permissions (including licences) issued under the Environment Protection Act 2017 is available on the EPA public registers.
- Priority Sites Register is available at https://www.epa.vic.gov.au/your-environment/land-and-groundwater/priority-sites-register
- Licenced Sites data is available at https://www.epa.vic.gov.au/our-work/licences-and-approvals/licences
- Environmental Audit data layer is available at https://www.epa.vic.gov.au/for-business/find-a-topic/environmental-audit-system
- Groundwater Quality Restricted Use Zones (GQRUZ) is available at https://www.epa.vic.gov.au/for-community/environmental-information/land-groundwater-pollution/gqruz-map
- Victorian Landfill Register (VLR) data is available at https://www.epa.vic.gov.au/for-community/environmental-information/household-waste/landfills/victorian-landfill-register
Data can be also downloaded from within the Victoria Unearthed interactive map by exporting the results from a search or the Identify tool – see “How to export results” at How to Use Victoria Unearthed.
The various datasets in Victoria Unearthed have different degrees of accuracy and reliability.
For example, the Historical Business Listings are a record of historical business locations in Victoria from the old Sands & McDougall directories. These directories have presented particular challenges regarding data accuracy as Victoria's street names and numbers may have changed drastically over the past century, and so has the way we record information.
The Victorian Landfill Register (VLR) was created by EPA in 2018. At its first release, the VLR dataset only included information about landfills that could be suitably verified at that time.
Environmental Audit Overlays, Groundwater Quality Restricted Use Zones (GQRUZs) and EPA Environmental Audits are a snapshot of information at a certain point in time and do not establish current contamination. Some GQRUZs that were applied between 2007 and 1 January 2014 may not have their corresponding environmental audit reports linked to them in Victoria Unearthed. This is because these reports were developed under a different system and are held manually by EPA.
NOTE: Sites with audits completed under the Environment Protection Act 2017 after 1 July 2021 are not currently included in Victoria Unearthed. Information on audits completed under the 2017 act (including licences) is available on the EPA public registers.
The Priority Sites Register (PSR) is a list of sites that have been issued with a clean-up notice or a pollution abatement notice. Once a site has complied with notices it is removed from the PSR. It can take up to two months for a site to appear on the PSR after a notice has been issued, or to be taken off the PSR after it has complied with notices. The PSR is updated monthly and the information on it may not be accurate, current or complete.
NOTE: New sites added to the PSR after 1 July 2021 are not currently included in Victoria Unearthed. The most current full PSR list is available on the EPA website.
EPA Licences are issued from EPA’s statutory activities and the information in this layer is accurate, reliable and updated on a regular basis by EPA Victoria.
NOTE: New licenced sites added after 1 July 2021 are not currently included in Victoria Unearthed. Information on new permissions under the EP Act 2017 (including licences) is available on the EPA public registers.
Click the links at the top of the page to find out more about each dataset, including information about accuracy and limitations.
This depends on the dataset. Priority Sites Register, EPA Licenced Sites, EPA Environmental Audits, Environmental Audit Overlay and Groundwater Quality Restricted Use Zone information is updated on an ongoing basis. As information comes in, these datasets are updated and replicated to appear in Victoria Unearthed.
NOTE: New data relating to audits, licences and priority sites is not currently available in Victoria Unearthed. EPA and DELWP are working to incorporate this new EPA data in Victoria Unearthed.
Victorian Landfill Register information will be updated progressively by the EPA over 2019-2020.
Information from the Historical Business Listings will also be updated progressively over 2019-2020 to correct locational errors and improve locational accuracy as new information comes to light.
User feedback will be used to inform the future development of Victoria Unearthed. If there is data you would like included in future releases, or you know of data that could potentially be used, please get in touch by leaving your feedback.
Page last updated: 10/12/21