Modelling Soil and Landscape Attributes in Cooloola Shire to Improve Degradation Management and Land Use Planning

Planning for land use development, protection of good quality agricultural land, land degradation management and many other resource management issues requires reliable land resource information. Enhanced Resource Assessment (ERA) techniques were employed to rapidly assess and predict soil and landscape attributes throughout Cooloola Shire in South East Queensland. ERA uses landscape modelling tools, existing digital data sets and landscape conceptual models to spatially predict and map landscape attributes. This study analysed observations of soil and landscape attributes against geology mapping and Digital Elevation Model (DEM) derivatives to develop relationships within recurring landscape patterns. Using these relationships a fuzzy logic approach was employed to model the continuous characteristics of these patterns. The study produced outputs of degradation risk (salinity and erosion), crop suitability for five land uses, assessment of good quality agricultural land, as well as the individual soil and landscape attributes modelled in the process. A traditional soil survey over this area (about 126 000 ha) would normally take several years to complete. This project has delivered the required products to the client in a much smaller time frame, about 9 months from inception to delivery. The modelling process has given the client the ability to utilise one or more soil and landscape attributes to aid the management of individual land degradation issues, or to consider them holistically in their planning process. A traditional approach would not have provided such flexible products to the client in this time frame. Additional