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Joint ASSSI and NZSSS soil Science Conference 2-7 December 2012

The 5th Joint SSA and NZSSS Soil Science Conference is being held in Tasmania between 2-7 December 2012. Over 300 delegates from throughout Australasia are expected to attend, including researchers, analysts, educationists, advisors, extension agents, land managers and policy makers from national, state and local government, universities and the private sector. The conference theme Soil Solutions for Diverse Landscapes reflects the breadth of soils, landforms and climate across the region, and the corresponding breadth of land use; from agriculture to forestry, conservation, recreation and urban use.

Visit www.soilscience2012.com for more information on the conference program, registration and tours.

TERN Soil and Landscape Facility

The Soil and Landscape Grid of Australia Facility will produce a comprehensive fine-resolution grid of soil attributes and important land surface parameters.

The facility, led by CSIRO will establish interactions with a broad range of collaborators from government, state departments and universities to develop the soil landscape grid infrastructure for Australia. The aims are to produce a coherent set of fine spatial resolution soil property maps with estimates of uncertainty that, integrated with modelling, might help provide ecosystem services to help device solutions to current concerns over food, water and energy securities, climate change and land degradation.

Soil Changes Matters - International Workshop 24-27 March 2014

Soil change in response to land use, land management and climate. Understanding the mechanism and rate of change in fundamental soil properties, and their extent across the landscape, is critical for management of soil and land to ensure enduring productivity and provision of ecosystem services.

The Soil Change Matters workshop is to be held in Bendigo, Victoria in March 2014. It is a joint meeting of the IUSS Global Soil Change and Soil Monitoring Working Groups and is hosted by DPI Victoria's 'Understanding Soil and Farming Systems' project. for more information visit www.dpi.vic.gov.au/vro/usfs

State of Environment 2011 – Land Chapter

The fourth national assessment of the state of Australia’s environment was launched on the 12th December 2011 by the Minister, the Hon Tony Burke MP. The report includes graded ‘report-card’ style assessments of environment condition and trends, pressures and management effectiveness.

The Land Chapter includes key findings for soil and land – with the situation and outlook mixed. Although we have made progress in many aspects of managing Australia's land environment, the trends for many indicators of land environmental values remain adverse, and are likely to be exacerbated by climate change.

National Soil Grids released on ASRIS

The ASRIS team has produced a first set of gridded (250m) standard national soil data products for specific soil attributes. This inital release includes grids of clay content (0-30cm), bulk density (0-30cm) and plant available water capacity (0-1m).

Visit the National Soil Grids theme page for more information.

Soil policy update

The Soil Task Group has undertaken an assessment of current investment and capability in soils research, development and extension (RD&E) to assist in research and development collaboration including linkages of extension programs. For more information on this assessment and other soil policy activities of the National Committee on Soil and Terrain click here.

To view archived soil policy news items click here.

The Australian Soil Classification - An Interactive Key

Available as free download

The Australian Soil Classification - An Interactive Key allocates soil profiles to every level within the official Australian Soil Classification (revised edition).

The Australian Soil Classification - An Interactive Key is available as a free download (100MB). The Open Delta software (Version 1.0) that runs the Interactive Key is available as a free download. The Interactive Key is compatible with Windows 8 and earlier windows versions.

ASRIS/ACLEP User Needs Analysis

This report documents a project to assess ‘existing needs’ of key users of the Australian Soil Resources Information System (ASRIS). The project was not an exhaustive evaluation of all users’ requirements nor was it a technical review of the ASRIS delivery mechanism.

ACLEP commissioned this report to provide direction for the future development of national soil data products that would meet specific user requirements and be applicable to a broad range of soil data users. In particular, to identify the attributes of soil that would be most relevant to specific needs. Download the report.

Physiographic Regions of Australia

The report gives an overview of physiographic mapping in Australia, describes current methods for mapping and provides a brief description of Australia’s landscapes and the regions that have been defined. The audience will range from those who are looking for a brief description of the physiography of Australia to those who will use the data for integrated studies of the environment.

The report and digital data set are available for download from the Australian Soil Resource Information System.

Concepts and Rationale of the Australian Soil Classification - back in print

This publication which was out of print is once again available from CSIRO publishing. It is designed to be read in conjunction with The Australian Soil Classification by R.F. Isbell. It elaborates on many of the diagnostic horizons and materials given in the glossary of the classification, and gives the rationale for the establishment of various classes and diagnostic criteria. The book also gives an overview of the general features of the new orders with individual distribution maps showing their occurrence in Australia.

CSIRO Land Research Series

The CSIRO Land Research Series are available as electronic downloads from the CSIRO Publishing website. An abstract and PDF text file of each report are provided and raster copies of maps as JPG files are included. Vector copies of some maps are available from other Commonwealth and State agencies and access details are provided where appropriate.

Visit the CSIRO Land Research Series website