Land Systems

The former Soil Conservation Authority began an inventory of Victoria's lands in the 1950's, led by R.G Downes. He saw the need to include data on land characteristics and processes when planning for land use and land management. The Land Systems method was subsequently developed in conjunction with Frank Gibbons, Jim Rowan and Ken Rowe (amongst others) and they were prominent in its application. During resultant studies they identified the Land Systems and their land components as well as information on factors affecting production, susceptibility to processes of soil degradation, and land management.

The Land Systems method involves an ecological approach - integrating environmental features often mapped singularly e.g. rainfall, geology, topography, soils and indigenous vegetation. Patterns occur that are governed by climate, geology and landform, which interact over time to influence the distribution of soils and vegetation. A Land System is therefore a complex mapping unit that contains a pattern of land components each of which has little variation in climate, lithology (rock type), landform, soil and indigenous vegetation. Each land component can therefore be regarded as a unit of management for broad-scale uses such as dryland farming or forestry.