This interactive map presents climate-related data to support the National Construction Code (NCC). It's useful for builders, designers, certifiers, regulators and other industry professionals. It will help them to see how climate factors influence the building requirements outlined in the NCC.
The map includes dynamic layers and static reference maps. These show the Australian Building Codes Board (ABCB) climate zones, relative humidity patterns and alpine areas.
This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC-BY). To view a copy of this license, visit the Creative Commons website.
The information below gives an overview of the map’s data and includes extra details and links.
ABCB Climate zone map:
Australia has a varied climate, leading to different locations around the country having different heating and cooling requirements. To account for these differences the energy efficiency DTS Provisions vary from location to location and for simplicity, locations with approximately similar climates have been combined into eight climate zones.
The following provides a brief description of each NCC climate zone:
- Climate zone 1 - high humidity summer, warm winter
- Climate zone 2 - warm humid summer, mild winter
- Climate zone 3 - hot dry summer, warm winter
- Climate zone 4 - hot dry summer, cool winter
- Climate zone 5 - warm temperate
- Climate zone 6 - mild temperate
- Climate zone 7 - cool temperate
- Climate zone 8 - alpine
These eight climate zones are illustrated in the form of a climate zone map which was created using Bureau of Meteorology climatic data with two supplementary zones added to accommodate an additional temperate zone and alpine area.
You can download the climate zone map from data.gov.au.
Relative humidity
These layers show the average relative humidity for January and July, based on data collected from 1976 to 2005. You can learn more how relative humidity is calculated on the Bureau of Meteorology website .
Alpine area
This layer identifies alpine regions based on elevation thresholds used in building and planning standards.
- 1200 m in New South Wales, Australian Capital Territory and Victoria
- 900 m in Tasmania.
The General Bathymetric Chart of the Oceans (GEBCO) elevation dataset uses GEBCO's global elevation models. You can learn more on the Australian Antarctic Data Centre's website .