Speaker

Senior Land Resource Analyst at Department of Primary Industries, Parks, Water and Environment (DPIPWE) 

High-Resolution Mapping Products to Support Agricultural Decision-Making, Tasmania

A suite of new, high resolution soil, climate and suitability mapping products have been developed by DPIPWE (Natural Values Conservation) using advanced modelling techniques. These include Enterprise Suitability for 32 crops, versatility indices, real-time temperature, accumulated growth indices, and soil vulnerability mapping. They are publicly served through LISTmap (www.theLIST.tas.gov.au) to provide decision support tools to help farmers and investors identify suitable areas to diversify or develop new crops, ascertain environmental constraints such as stone content, drainage, frost, and heat risk, and make seasonal management decisions based on current climatic conditions.

Hazards to long-term sustainability, such as erosion by wind and water, sodicity, salinity and waterlogging are also provided. Finally, to help Tasmanian agriculture better plan for changes in suitability due to climate change, latest ‘Climate Futures Tasmania’ projections were recently downscaled and integrated with all 32 crops to show projected suitability for the years 2030 and 2050.