Dataset
Department of Planning and Environment
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Land and Soil Capability Mapping for NSW

This Land and Soil Capability (LSC) dataset uses the best available soils natural resource mapping across New South Wales. It provides a broad-scale, regional view as to the dominant LSC class present for over 3000 individual mapping units through the assessment of eight key soil and landscape limitations (water erosion, wind erosion, salinity, topsoil acidification, shallow soils/rockiness, soil structure decline, waterlogging and mass movement).

The assessment of LSC is based on the mapping method and rule set developed by OEH (2012). It builds on the rural land capability classification and mapping undertaken for the central and eastern divisions of the state by the former Soil Conservation Service of NSW (Emery 1986) but with more emphasis on a broader range of soil and landscape properties.

The mapping is based on an eight class system with values ranging between 1 and 8 which represent a decreasing capability of the land to sustain landuse. Class 1 represents land capable of sustaining most landuses including those that have a high impact on the soil (e.g., regular cultivation), whilst class 8 represents land that can only sustain very low impact landuses (e.g., nature conservation). Information about the LSC ruleset called the Land and Soil Capability Assessment Scheme: Second Approximation can be downloaded from the DPIE website or from this Resource's page in SEED.

Online Maps: This dataset can be viewed using eSPADE (NSW’s soil spatial viewer), which contains a suite of soil and landscape information including soil profile data. Many of these datasets have hot-linked soil reports. An alternative viewer is the SEED Map; an ideal way to see what other natural resources datasets (e.g. vegetation) are available for this map area.

Reference: Department of Planning, Industry and Environment, 2021, Land and Soil Capability Mapping for NSW, Version 4.5, NSW Department of Planning, Industry and Environment, Parramatta.

Data and Resources

Metadata Summary What is metadata?

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Field Value
Language English
Edition 4.5
Purpose Support natural resource management and decision making. The dataset was created to assist meeting Soil Condition and Land Management theme targets for the Monitoring, Evaluation and Reporting program. It is one of the primary datasets used to create the regional Biophysical Strategic Agricultural Land (BSAL) maps under the NSW Government's Strategic Regional Land Use Policy.
Frequency of change As needed
Keywords AGRICULTURE,HAZARDS,HAZARDS-Flood,HAZARDS-Landslip,LAND-Topography,SOIL,SOIL-Erosion
Metadata Date 2008-01-12
Date of Asset Creation 2008-12-01
Date of Asset Revision 2021-10-20
Date of Asset Publication 2013-05-02
License Creative Commons Attribution 4.0
Equivalent Scale 250000
Vector representation
Record 1
Object type
Surface
Object count
98726
Geospatial Topic Farming
NSW Place Name NSW
Extent

Dataset extent

Map data © OpenStreetMap contributors
Temporal Coverage From 2008-01-08 - 2020-01-30
Datum GDA94 Geographic (Lat\Long)
Legal Disclaimer Read
Attribution Department of Planning and Environment asserts the right to be attributed as author of the original material in the following manner: "© State Government of NSW and Department of Planning and Environment 2013"