Soil and Land Information

Statewide soil and land information can be discovered and viewed through eSPADE or SEED. Datasets include soil profiles, soil landscapes, soil and land resources, acid sulfate soil risk mapping, hydrogeological landscapes, land systems and land use. There are also various statewide coverages of specific soil and land characteristics, such as soil type, land and soil capability, soil fertility, soil regolith, soil hydrology and modelled soil properties.

Both eSPADE and SEED enable soil and land data to be viewed on a map. SEED focuses more on the holistic approach by enabling you to add other environmental layers such as mining boundaries, vegetation or water monitoring points. SEED also provides access to metadata and data quality statements for layers.

eSPADE provides greater functions and allows you to drill down into soil points or maps to access detailed information such as reports and images. You can navigate to a specific location, then search and select multiple objects and access detailed information about them. You can also export spatial information for use in other applications such as Google Earth™ and GIS software.

eSPADE is a free Internet information system and works on desktop computers, laptops and mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets and uses a Google maps-based platform familiar to most users. It has over 42,000 soil profile descriptions and approximately 4,000 soil landscape descriptions. This includes the maps and descriptions from the Soil Landscape Mapping program. eSPADE also includes the base maps underpinning Biophysical Strategic Agricultural Land (BSAL).

For more information on eSPADE visit: https://www.environment.nsw.gov.au/topics/land-and-soil/soil-data/espade