ASRIS Technical Specifications V1.6

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agglomerative approach. Furthermore, different criteria for mapping emerge at these more generalizedlevels and many of the criteria used at lower levels lose significance (and vice versa).In ASRIS, tracts at levels 1–2 delineate regions comprised of contiguous land units rather than multipleinstances of the same land-unit type. This is necessary for cartographic efficiency at broad scales.Table 3: The spatial hierarchy of land-unit tracts (after Speight 1988). Note that the database design for ASRISallows intermediate Levels to be characterized (e.g. a System with a characteristic dimension significantly less that100 m would be designated as Level 5.1 or 5.2 in the hierarchy)LevelOrder ofland-unittractSpeightCharacteristicdimensionDescriptive or defining attributes0 Division 300km 30 km Broad physiography (slope andrelief) and geology1.0 Province 100 km 10 km Physiography, water balance,dominant soil order and substrate2.0 Region 3 km Physiography, regolith materials,age of land surface, waterbalance, dominant soil suborderAppropriate map scale1:10 million1: 2.5 million1:1 millionASRIS Mapping HiatusLevels above are based on subdivisions of the continentLevels below are aggregated from surveys.3.0 Zone 30 km 3 km Groupings of geomorphicallyrelated systems4.0 District 5 km 1 km Groupings of geomorphicallyrelated systems1:1 million1:250 0005.0 System 600 m 300 m Local climate, relief, modal slope,single lithology or single complexof lithologies, similar drainage netthroughout, related soil profileclasses (soil-landscape*)1:100 0005.1 100 m As for Level 5 1:25 0006.0 Facet 40 m 30 m Slope, aspect, soil profile class 1:100006.1 10 m 1:25006.2 3 m 1:10007.0 Site 20 m 10 m Soil properties, surface condition,microrelief* Thompson and Moore (1984)rarely mapped inconventional survey12
4.2 Upper levels of the hierarchyThe upper levels of the land-unit hierarchy are described in Sections 6–8. There are many other maps ofAustralia’s natural resources at scales equivalent to the land region, land province or land division. Someexamples relevant to soils and landscapes include:• Northcote et al. (1960–1968) – Atlas of Australian soils• Löffler and Ruxton (1969) – Relief and landform map of Australia• Laut et al. (1980) – Provisional environmental regions of Australia• CSIRO (1983) – Soil landscape regions• Grant et al. (1984) – Geotechnical landscape map of Australia• Chan (1986) – Regolith terrain map of Australia• Jennings and Mabbutt (1986) – Physiographic regions of Australia• Environment Australia (2000) – Interim Biogeographic Regions Version 5.1• Coram et al. (2001) – Groundwater flow systems• Williams et al. (2002) – Agro-ecological regions of AustraliaASRIS has the facility to represent such stratifications above the level of the mapping hiatus. IBRA regions,groundwater flow systems, and catchment management boundaries are available and others will be addedif required. The ability to represent other stratifications allows summaries of soil and landscape propertiesto be generated in various formats. This promotes both integration of natural resource information andmore widespread use of soil and land data by non soil-science based groups.The line work and principles of Jennings and Mabbutt (1986) have been used to develop methods for Levels1–2 in ASRIS. In particular:• land-unit tracts at these levels are mostly discrete entities and outliers are permitted only inexceptional cases (e.g. offshore islands, major plateau adjacent to extensive tablelands)• tracts are hierarchical and have a single parent-tract• the conventions for geographic naming outlined by Jennings and Mabbutt (1986) are followedexcept where their existing terms fail to have a local resonance (e.g. Werriwa Tablelands for thenorthern section of the Southern Tablelands in New South Wales) – this judgement is made bystate and territory agency staff with reference to local naming conventions.4.2.1 Data presentationApart from the online maps, data summaries (e.g. for soil properties such as pH, exchangeable cations,hydraulic conductivity) in the ASRIS land-unit hierarchy are of two basic types:• area-weighted means (only for attributes where this is appropriate)• histograms of attributes based on percentage area.These two options, when combined with estimates of uncertainty, should form a sufficient basis for mostqueries of the system. The provision of histograms is to ensure compatibility with modelling systems suchas those used in hydrology that use distributional information rather than simple measures of centraltendency (e.g. mean, median). It is also an essential step towards providing better measures of uncertaintyfor all users of soil and land information.13
Page 1: SUSTAINABLE AGRICULTURE FLAGSHIPThe
Page 6 and 7: Table 1: Complementary benefits of
Page 8 and 9: Table 62: The num_est_method_type t
Page 11 and 12: 1 SummaryThis document specifies th
Page 13 and 14: 2 User needs for soil and land reso
Page 15 and 16: 2.3 Mapping, monitoring, modelling,
Page 17 and 18: estimates of soil erosion by water.
Page 19 and 20: 3 Development of ASRISASRIS was ini
Page 21: Handbook (NCST 2009) will be famili
Page 25 and 26: 5 Accuracy, precision and a basis f
Page 27 and 28: 1.0MeanProbability5 %quantile95 %qu
Page 29 and 30: 6 Level-1 descriptors (land provinc
Page 31 and 32: Figure 5: Relative reliefFigure 6:
Page 33 and 34: Figure 7: Average annual excess wat
Page 35 and 36: 10 Level-5 descriptors (land system
Page 37 and 38: 10.3 LandformRelief/modal slopeReli
Page 39 and 40: 11 Level-6 descriptors (land facets
Page 41 and 42: Table 15: Landform elements (after
Page 43 and 44: Table 17: Described gilgai componen
Page 45 and 46: (a) (b) (c)A11A11A1 1A21A222B23B22B
Page 47 and 48: Layer-1 Texture and clay contentThe
Page 49 and 50: ZL Silty loam ZLA Sapric silty loam
Page 51 and 52: Coarse fragmentsCoarse fragments ar
Page 53 and 54: pH profileThe pH in a 1:5 CaCl 2 so
Page 55 and 56: Total thickness of A horizonThe tot
Page 57 and 58: Table 31: Method for the estimation
Page 59 and 60: Profile availablewater capacityAdju
Page 61 and 62: Table 32: Permeability classesClass
Page 63 and 64: Table 34: Estimation method for ele
Page 65 and 66: Exchangeable bases, CEC, and ESPEst
Page 67 and 68: Australian Soil ClassificationThe A
Page 69 and 70: FH Palic GZ Bleached-Orthic IS Ferr
Page 71 and 72: Table 47: Reference Soil Group code
Page 73 and 74:
Local taxonomic classIf available,
Page 75 and 76:
12 Soil Profile DatabaseAs noted ea
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Figure 12: Database design for ASRI
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Table 57: The ref_sites tableColumn
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Table 61: The param_num_method tabl
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Table 68: The codes table.Column Na
Page 85 and 86:
15 ReferencesACLEP (in prep.) SITES
Page 87 and 88:
McKenzie NJ, Ryan PJ (1999) Spatial
Page 89 and 90:
Appendix 1: Conversion for pH in wa
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CONTACT USt 1300 363 400+61 3 9545
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ASRIS Technical Specifications V1.6

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