A Study of the Land in South-Western Victoria was prepared by Frank Gibbons and Geoff Downes of the Soil Conservation Authority in 1964.
Different types of land degradation were found to have occurred in various land system components and these can be viewed in the original scanned document together with an outline of environmental characteristics (Gibbons and Downes, 1964). A general discussion of the incidence and processes involved the land systems is located in the section on `Present Condition of the Land` (pp. 95-98).
A summary of these types of degradation for each land system is presented in the following table.
Summary of Land Degradation in south-western Victoria as reported by Gibbons and Downes (1964).
Land System | Main Forms of Land Degradation |
Wind erosion | |
Wind erosion | |
Nelson Bridgewater sub-system Kentbruck sub-system William sub-system Follet/Nelson Moleside sub-system | Wind erosion Wind erosion Wind erosion Wind erosion |
None to very low | |
Heywood Heywood sub-system Dunmore sub-system Fitzroy sub-system Margaret Rose sub-system Codrington sub-system | None to slight |
None to low None to low, slight water erosion | |
Sheet and gully erosion, salting Sheet erosion, salting Sheet and gully erosion | |
Sheet, rill, gully and streambank erosion, siltation, earthflows, salting | |
Sheet, gully and streambank erosion, sand deposition, siltation, earthflows, slumping, solifluction | |
Loss of surface soil structure, surface sealing, sheet and gully erosion, salting | |
Sheet and gully erosion, slumping, siltation, salting | |
Sheet erosion, salting | |
Sheet erosion | |
None | |
Flooding, possible siltation, loss by humification and burning after drainage, possible incipient salting eventually | |
Roadside erosion of krasnozems on steeper slopes | |
Sheet, roadside and gully erosion, siltation, salting, earthflows | |
Sheet erosion, gully erosion especially along roadsides | |
Gully erosion | |
Gully erosion | |
Reference
Gibbons, F.R. and Downes, R.G. (1964) `A study of the land in south-western Victoria'. Soil Conservation Authority of Victoria Technical Communication No. 3. (Government Printer: Melbourne).