Spatial Tools for Land Management
Abstract
Stress of European style agriculture on Australian landscapes is causing long-term degradation problems which are difficult to reverse. These problems coupled with low commodity prices and narrow profitability margins underlie the need for better information for land and catchment management.
For farmers to increase productivity and be sustainable both from an ecological and economic sense they need to understand landscapes. Geophysics measures within the regolith and thus reflects sub-surface processes that may impact on land management.
Geophysical systems have been adapted, altered or new systems designed specifically for the deeply weathered Australian landscapes. Development of new-generation airborne geophysical systems has been funded because of the potential application in land management. The land management market needs to ensure that these systems are appropriate for their needs because the designers and operators experience is in mineral exploration.
In land management the interpretation approach is to use all the data and the use of many complimentary datasets. A 'pixel by pixel' interpretation is appropriate for datasets which may only have a few thousand pixels per farm. In the traditional mineral exploration market around 90% of the data may be discarded in the first pass of interpretation in the rush to find mineralisation targets. The different approaches are important in terms of data resolution and quality. Advances in GIS allow easier data manipulation and information extraction. The information and knowledge from interpretation of geophysical data will allow better design and testing of land management decisions.