Sydney Basin bioregion area
- 3,629,597 hectares in total
- 3,622,939 hectares in NSW (the remainder in the Australian Capital Territory)
The Sydney Basin bioregion extends from just north of Batemans Bay to Nelson Bay on the central coast, and almost as far west as Mudgee. It is bordered to the north by the North Coast and Brigalow Belt South bioregions, to the south by the South East Corner bioregion and to the west by the South Eastern Highlands and South Western Slopes bioregions.
It includes a significant proportion of the catchments of the Hawkesbury-Nepean, Hunter and Shoalhaven river systems, all of the smaller catchments of Lake Macquarie, Lake Illawarra, the Hacking, Georges and Parramatta rivers, and smaller portions of the headwaters of the Clyde and Macquarie rivers.
The climate is mostly temperate with warm summers and no dry season, with the coastal and Hunter regions being warmer than the higher plateaux and western edge.
There is more than 200 threatened animal and plant species in the Sydney Basin bioregion, including the critically endangered Wollemi pine (Wollemia nobilis) which only grows in a restricted part of the Wollemi National Park. Threatened animals include the brush-tailed rock-wallaby (Petrogale penicillata), koala (Phascolarctos cinereus) and powerful owl (Ninox strenua).
National parks and nature reserves make up about 35% of the bioregion and the the World Heritage listed Blue Mountains makes up over 1 million hectares of the Sydney Basin bioregion. The Ramsar-listed Towra Point Nature Reserve and Hunter Estuary Wetlands are in this bioregion.
Read the Sydney Basin bioregion chapter of 'Bioregions of New South Wales' (2003) (PDF 4.1MB) for more information.
