Soils Data in the Murray
CMA:
what we’ve got,
what we’re doing with it
and is it accessible?
Felicity Anderson
Soils Officer.
Our main uses for soils data…
-Landholders
-Project/program planning: targeting
action
-General state of the catchment to
know what we’re dealing with
-Monitoring
-Media
-Research projects
What have we been doing?
•DAFF/CSIRO Soil Carbon Research Project
•GRDC Harnessing the biological potential of cropping soils project – 200 sites
- Soil biological indicators in the western irrigation areas project
•Soil benchmarking
•Healthy Soils Healthy Landscapes
•Land management within capability surveys and soilwatch testing
Data Dates collected Number
of sites
Healthy Soils Healthy
Landscapes
?? ??
Soil Benchmarking 2007-2008 107
Soil Carbon Research Project 2011 - 2012 200
Irrigated Agriculture Soil
Biology project
2011 50
Soil Watch 2011 - 2013 30
Land Management Within
Capability
2012-2013 20
Groundcover Monitoring 2010 - 2013 223
Dustwatch 2007 - 2013 260
Soil Benchmarking project
Soil Carbon Research Project
http://www.soilquality.org.au/
DustWatch
Issues…
• We have a lot of data stored internally
•Hard to use, big bulky spreadsheets
•Landholders are given one off “results” but no ongoing access to data
• Not easily accessed by other organisations doing similar work in the region
• mis-use of data once in the public domain
Solutions…
• Make data available externally / increase access – available to landholders and other organisations:
- more publically available websites like soilquality.org.au, or more data stored on soilquality.org.au
- Soil benchmarking data to be added to the soilquality website
• Collaboration on soils projects to ensure greater use of the data.
•Be very clear and specific about what the data presented can/cannot do
