Whassup DAFWA? Spatial data in the Department of Agriculture and Food WA

2. Whassup DAFWA?Spatial data in the Department of Agriculture and Food WA February 2010

3. Geographic Information Services • Dedicated group within the Department since 1986. • Role: To provide a spatial data service to support the business and activities of the Department and the wider Agricultural Industry. • Part of Business Services Division, Information Services Branch. • 13 permanent staff based in South Perth + Contractors. • 15 staff based across nine regional offices. • Software platform Intergraph GeoMedia. • Major datasets stored in Oracle Spatial format, also GeoMedia warehouse (MS Access). • Metadata maintained in Interragator+.

4. Major Custodial Datasets • Client Property Database. • Current extent of remnant vegetation. • Pre-European vegetation. • Soil-landscape/land system mapping. • Land Use.

5. Client Property Database • Landgate parcel data are the ‘building blocks’. • Stored in Oracle Spatial. • Available to all Department staff via intranet interface. • Updated daily by GIS staff. • Essential service to support the biosecurity and regulatory operations of the Department. • Contact details restricted to Department use.

6. Client Property Database

7. Current Extent of Native Vegetation • Vector dataset captured using the best available aerial photo mosaics. • Scale of capture in the process of being upgraded from 1:100, 000 to 1:20, 000. • Distinguishes between native vegetation and plantations. • Updated on a regular basis. • Intersected with pre-European vegetation to obtain current extent by type dataset.

8. Current Extent of Native Vegetation • Date status • Scale status

9. Pre-European Vegetation • Comprehensive vegetation map of WA. • Scale of capture 1:250, 000 based on work of J.S. Beard. • Compatible with National Vegetation Information System. • Last updated 2005.

10. Soil-landscape/land system mapping • Vector dataset captured from mapping carried out by DAFWA Land Resource Assessment Group and incorporating earlier mapping by CSIRO. • Hierarchical system of mapping. • Database of some 60,000 soil profile observations. • Complete coverage of the agricultural area at subsystem/phase level. Scale of mapping varies from 1:50, 000 on the coastal plain to 1:250, 000 in the eastern wheatbelt. • Comprehensive set of land quality and land capability attribution. • Rangeland land system and Atlas of Australian Soils incorporated into a statewide dataset. • WA layer in the Australian Soil Resource Information System

11. Soil-landscape mapping (cont.) • Widely used for shire, regional and local planning purposes. • Major information source for reports such as State of the Environment. • Survey program complete but some areas are undergoing upscaling, occasional updates. • Available to public via the SLIP NRM Info interface. • Metadata maintained in Interragator+ on a survey basis and also a generic metadata statement for the complete dataset.

12. Soil-landscape mapping

13. Land Use • First produced for National Land and Water Resources Audit 2001. • Property-based land use. • 2006-Present project to map land use at sub-property level on a sub-catchment basis using aerial photo interpretation and limited field survey. • Builds on perennial horticulture survey 2002-2005 and datasets from DAFWA and other agencies (reserves, current extent of native vegetation, town planning schemes etc.). • Land use classified according to Australian Land Use and Management Classification V6. • Data capture in progress as funding permits.

14. Land Use

15. Other Projects/datasets • BioSIRT – National biosecurity incident and surveillance data management system. • Weed Watcher – Web-based portal for Australian Weeds Research Council. • Climate mapping for monthly Department Seasonal Outlook. • Pastoral lease infrastructure plans. • Mapping and Spatial Analysis tasks in support of Departmental activities eg. Agri-business precinct location study, Drought reform pilot study, small landholder workshops, GM Canola growers.