Soil and Landscape Science

Group Leader: Anthony Ringrose-Voase

This group leads Australia’s efforts in the development of techniques for soil mapping and is responsible for the development of Australia’s standards in this field. The Terrain Analysis Team is a key player in the development of new generation Digital Elevation Models for the country and has had many strong relationships with international groups working in this field.

The Group comprises soil and environmental physicists, agricultural chemists, irrigation systems engineers, soil-plant-climate interactions modelers, catchment water quality modellers plus expert technical support.

Group members are leaders in analysing environmental impacts of agriculture and in designing improved systems of land management.

Our capability

Specific capabilities include:

• Modelling of soil-plant-climate systems in agriculture (including soil water balance, nutrient dynamics, solute transport, acidification, analysis of climate variability, and spatial applications)
• Measurement of soil and water properties and processes (soil properties, water balance, solute transport and reaction chemistry, nitrogen cycling, degradation and fate of pesticides)
• Irrigation system analysis and design (including irrigation scheduling; drainage systems; water re-use; waste water characterisation, treatment and disposal; conjunctive water uses)
• Spatial analysis of agricultural soil-plant-climate processes from paddock to catchment scales (environmental impacts, soil constraints to agricultural production, agricultural systems design).

Relationships

Key science collaborators include farming systems modelers, agronomists, hydrologists and water quality modelers from other CSIRO groups, plus academic staff from various Australian Universities (e.g. University of Tasmania, University of New England, Australian National University, Charles Sturt University, James Cook University), International Universities (e.g. University of Pretoria, South Africa; Friedrich-Schiller University of Jena, Germany; Graduate University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, China) and other research institutions (e.g. New South Wales Department of Primary Industries).

Our commercial partners include Grains Research and Development Corporation, Grape and Wine Research and Development Corporation, CRC for Irrigation Futures, Land and Water Australia, and the Australian Council of International Agricultural Research. There are strong intergovernmental relationships with the Australian Collaborative Land Evaluation Program (ACLEP), and the National Land and Water Resources Audit.

Key physical assets include laboratory measurement infrastructure for soil physical properties (e.g. soil water retention and hydraulic conductivity) and chemical constituents (e.g. HPLC and GCMS for analysis of pesticides and other organics, AA spectrophotometer for soil cations), and field infrastructure for measurement of soil water and solute fluxes (e.g. field lysimeter laboratories).

The Group manages, on behalf of CSIRO, the National Soil Archive and is the custodian of the Australian Soil Resource Information System (ASRIS).

Related Links

• Australian Soil Resource Information System
• Sentinel Hotspots
• Development of a Catchment Containment Model for Stakeholder Use
• Water for a Healthy Country Flagship
• eWater CRC