Catchment scale land use of Australia – Commodities

Publication date: 25 February 2021

The Catchment Scale Land use of Australia – Commodities – Update December 2020 dataset is the third national compilation of catchment scale commodity data for Australia (CLUMC) current as at December 2020. It replaces the Catchment Scale Land Use of Australia – Commodities – Update December 2018 version 2 released on 26 November 2019. It has been compiled from vector land use datasets collected as part of state and territory mapping programs through the Australian Collaborative Land Use and Management Program (ACLUMP).The commodities data complements the Catchment Scale Land Use of Australia – Update December 2020 dataset, providing for select predominantly agricultural commodities, where available, their location and extent, at the date verified.

The following areas have been updated since the December 2018 version 2: Burnett Mary and Fitzroy natural resource management (NRM) region in Queensland; Sydney basin in New South Wales; the state of Tasmania; and the Darwin–Litchfield and Katherine areas in Northern Territory.

Agricultural commodities are assigned to the Australian Land Use and Management (ALUM) Classification version 8 classes based on; perceived intervention to the landscape, growing conditions and management, the intended use of the commodity, consistency with national and international reporting frameworks and standards, industry guidelines and trade codes. Commodities data were produced as part of catchment scale land use mapping and primarily uses fine-scale satellite data and information collected in the field. Field validation was critical for mapping commodities.

Jurisdiction captured commodity data (where possible) for those areas most recently mapped with a focus on horticulture and intensive animal industries. Other commodities which are tertiary classes of the ALUM classification (such as sugar cane, cotton, rice, olives and grapes) have been mapped by jurisdictions for some time and are included in this dataset. The source year (2002 to 2020), date of mapping (2008 to 2019) and scale of mapping (1:5,000 to 1:250,000) vary, reflecting the source data, capture date and scale. It is important to note that the location of a commodity may change on an annual basis, depending on factors such as climate, markets or farming systems.

Catchment Scale Land Use of Australia – Broad commodity types, where available, map

Citation

ABARES 2021, Catchment Scale Land Use of Australia – Commodities – Update December 2020, Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics and Sciences, Canberra, February, CC BY 4.0, DOI: 10.25814/jhjb-c072