Soil and Land Resources of the Hunter Region

This digital soil landscape product contains natural resource mapping for the Hunter and Central Rivers sub-catchments plus extends to also include the Hunter Local Land Services (LLS) government boundary.

The dataset upgrades 1:250,000 soil landscape mapping for the Singleton area providing a standardised and seamless land and soil information across the region at 1:100,000 scale. Mapping covers an area of 37,639 km2 from Yarrowitch and Murrurundi in the north to around Rylstone and Woy Woy in the south and extends west to just past Ulan.

The project was partially funded by the Hunter LLS and will assist decision making, planning and environmental modelling throughout the region. It also supports improved decision making and management of highly productive agricultural area (e.g. Biophysical Strategic Agricultural Land) under the NSW Government's Strategic Regional Land Use Policy (SRLUP) and Mining Sepp.

Four hundred and sixty soil landscape map units have been described within the Hunter Region. Each unit is an inventory of soil and landscape information with relatively uniform land management requirements, allowing major soil and landscape qualities and constraints to be identified. Many representative type profiles are supported by laboratory analysis and 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 Soil landscape 1:100 000 and 1:250 000 mapping series for the map sheets of Murrurundi, Blackville, Dungog, Newcastle, Port Stephens, Gosford/Lake Macquarie, Sydney, Wallerawang, St Albans, Dubbo and Singleton. Part of this area is also covered by the mapping of Hydrogeological landscapes of NSW and Acid Sulphate Soil Risk Mapping.

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: Department of Planning, Industry and Environment, 2020, Soil and Land Resources of the Hunter Region, version 1.5, NSW Department of Planning, Industry and Environment, Parramatta.