This review highlights the work of the Independent Expert Scientific Committee on Coal Seam Gas and Large Coal Mining Development (the IESC) for the 2021–2022 financial year.

Key elements of the IESC’s work in 2021–2022 include:

• providing eight pieces of scientific advice on proposed resource development projects
• continuing to engage with a range of stakeholders to explain our role and review how our advice is adopted in regulatory decisions
• supporting a workshop at Macquarie University to demonstrate a range of sampling approaches to understand the impacts of coal seam gas and large coal mining developments on stygofaunal and microbial assemblages in groundwater
• funding a research project on metagenomic approaches and a scoping study on coal mine voids in Queensland