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).