Operational digital soil assessment for enterprise suitability in Tasmania, Australia

A State Government Digital Soil Assessment (DSA) was piloted in 2012 to quantify the suitability of selected agricultural enterprises in irrigation expansion zones in Tasmania, Australia. The project was the first major operational DSA undertaken in Australia, and demonstrated the progressive migration of digital soil mapping theory into Government land resource assessment standard procedure. Digital soil and climate mapping surfaces were produced at 30 m resolution over 70,000 ha in two key Irrigation Schemes, as parameters for suitability modelling for twenty different enterprises, www.dpiw.tas.gov.au/wealthfromwater. Enterprise Suitability surfaces were released on a publically accessible spatial internet portal, www.theLIST.tas.gov.au, receiving in excess of 8,500 'hits' in the first three months of release. The project has led to an expanded Tasmanian state-wide enterprise suitability assessment at 3 arc-second resolution, with parallel contributions to both the TERN (Terrestrial Ecosystem Research Network Soil and Landscape Grid of Australia www.tern.org.au), and Globalsoilmap.net endeavors.