This digital soil landscape product contains natural resource mapping for the Murray Catchment Management Authority area. It integrates numerous soil mapping datasets into a single seamless coverage and provides access to numerous layers of spatial information and reports on soil types, terrain and physical constraints to use for the one hundred and fifty one map units. This information will assist in informed natural resource decision making, planning and environmental modelling throughout the catchment such as help target investments in land management and future soil and land incentive projects for the catchment.

Each soil landscape mapping unit is an inventory of soil and landscape information with relatively uniform land management requirements, allowing major soil and landscape constraints to be identified.

Constraints assessed in this dataset include shallow soils, steep slopes, mass movement hazard, non-cohesive soils, discharge zones, recharge zones, salinity, wind, sheet and gully erosion hazards, seasonal waterlogging and flood hazard. Soils are described using the Australian Soil Classification and the Great Soil Groups systems.

Related Datasets: The dataset area is also covered by the mapping of the Hydrogeological landscapes of NSW and Land Systems of Western New South Wales.

Online Maps: This and related datasets 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: Office of Environment and Heritage, 2010, Reconnaissance Soil and Land Resources of the Murray Catchment, NSW Office of Environment and Heritage, Sydney.