Chapter 1
I Groping In A Strange Environment: 1788-1851
II Farmers Take The Initiative: 1851-1888
III Enter Education And Science: 1888-1927
IV Agricultural Science Pays Dividends: 1927-1987
V Examples Of Research And Development 1928-1988
i Land assessment
ii Improving the environment
iii Adapting to the environment
iv Improving farm management
VI International Aspects Of Agricultural Research
VII Future Prospects
VIII Acknowledgements
References
Index
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Land assessment (continued)
Landsat has been put to a variety of uses in land assessment in Australia. It has been used in conjunction with the land systems concept to map the landscapes of the State of South Australia; using a computer classification system it has been used to identify, map and classify the islands and reefs of the Great Barrier Reef; and it has been used to measure the extent of erosion on newlycleared wheat lands in Western Australia. Despite the variety of uses to which it has been put Landsat is still not widely accepted for day to day land assessment activities. Nevertheless, in view of the cost of traditional ground survey methods, more and more emphasis is now being placed on the use of remote sensing techniques for gathering and assessing land data.Airborne electro-magnetic survey techniques have been extensively used in geological surveys for many years. During the past five years this technique has been refined in Australia as a landbased technique to indicate the presence of salinity within a few metres of the earth's surface. This refinement and adaption of a well-developed technology is particularly important in the context of the growing concern for groundwater salinity in Australia.
Despite the enormous increase in land assessment information for the Australian continent over the past four decades, the need remains to develop methods to expand this information base, to make it more readily available and to update old information as well as to link it to decision-making systems. Whilst at present no new continental surveys are being made of the land resources of the Australian continent, considerable research is being undertaken to improve geographic information systems for data storage and retrieval; the numerical taxonomy for the classification of land resource data; land use planning techniques; and crop modelling for major crops in the Australian environment.
While these fundamental advances have been made in identifying and describing the soils, climates, vegetation and water resources of the continent, and in assessing the potential of these resources for agricultural purposes, the mainstream of agricultural research has had the following aims:
- the improvement of the environment, for example, by increasing the availability of resources such as water, soil nutrients, or forage for animals, or by decreasing losses of farm crops and animals by minimising the effects of weeds, pests, predators and diseases;
- the introduction or breeding of plants and animals which are better suited or adapted to Australian environments; and
- the improvement of the efficiency with which available resources are utilized in farming systems through the better management and timing of crop and livestock operations.
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Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering |  |
© 1988 Print Edition pages 31 - 32, Online Edition 2000
Published by Australian Science and Technology Heritage Centre, using the Web Academic Resource Publisher
http://www.austehc.unimelb.edu.au/tia/038.html