Felicity Anderson’s (Murray CMA) presentation on the soils data collected, stored and used by the Murray CMA made to members and guests of the Riverina Branch of the Australian Society of Soil Science at a Soils Database Workshop, Albury-Wodonga campus of Charles Sturt University, on the 7 June 2013

1. Soils Data in the Murray
CMA:
what we’ve got,
what we’re doing with it
and is it accessible?
Felicity Anderson
Soils Officer.

2. Our main uses for soils data…
-Landholders
-Project/program planning: targeting
action
-General state of the catchment to
know what we’re dealing with
-Monitoring
-Media
-Research projects

3. What have we been doing?
•DAFF/CSIRO Soil Carbon Research
Project
•GRDC Harnessing the biological
potential of cropping soils project – 200
sites
- Soil biological indicators in the
western irrigation areas project
•Soil benchmarking
•Healthy Soils Healthy Landscapes
•Land management within capability
surveys and soilwatch testing

4. Data Dates collected Number
of sites
Healthy Soils Healthy
Landscapes
?? ??
Soil Benchmarking 2007-2008 107
Soil Carbon Research Project 2011 - 2012 200
Irrigated Agriculture Soil
Biology project
2011 50
Soil Watch 2011 - 2013 30
Land Management Within
Capability
2012-2013 20
Groundcover Monitoring 2010 - 2013 223
Dustwatch 2007 - 2013 260

5. Soil Benchmarking project

6. Soil Carbon Research Project

7. http://www.soilquality.org.au/

8. DustWatch

10. Issues…
• We have a lot of data stored
internally
•Hard to use, big bulky spreadsheets
•Landholders are given one off
“results” but no ongoing access to
data
• Not easily accessed by other
organisations doing similar work in
the region
• mis-use of data once in the public
domain

11. Solutions…
• Make data available externally /
increase access – available to
landholders and other organisations:
- more publically available websites like
soilquality.org.au, or more data stored
on soilquality.org.au
- Soil benchmarking data to be added to
the soilquality website
• Collaboration on soils projects to
ensure greater use of the data.
•Be very clear and specific about what
the data presented can/cannot do