Aquaculture suitability data of the Fitzroy catchment WA, Darwin catchments and Mitchell catchment Qld generated by the Northern Australia Water Resource Assessment

Brief description

These aquaculture suitability raster datasets (in GeoTIFF format) indicate areas of potential suitability for freshwater and marine aquaculture species in earthen or lined ponds. A multi-criteria analysis, involved the integration of soil data and biophysical characteristics within a GIS spatial analysis environment to predict potential sites to inform decision making. A set of limitations and rules were adapted from (McLeod et al., 2002) to determine suitability. These aquaculture datasets were generated within the ‘Land suitability’ activity in consultation with the agricultural viability activity of the Northern Australia Water Resource Assessment (NAWRA). The aquaculture suitability analysis is described in full in the CSIRO NAWRA published report ‘Aquaculture viability. A technical report to the Australian Government from the CSIRO Northern Australia Water Resource Assessment, part of the National Water Infrastructure Development Fund: Water Resource Assessments. CSIRO, Australia.’ Irvin S, Coman G, Musson D and Doshi A (2018). There are five suitability classes coded 1-5. 1 – Highly suitable land with negligible limitations 2 – Suitable land with minor limitations 3 – Moderately suitable land with considerable limitations 4 – Currently unsuitable land with severe limitations 5 – Unsuitable land with extreme limitations. Each drop in suitability implies that more management input (and cost) is required to achieve incremental increases in production. The soil and land characteristics considered for all configurations include; clay content, sodicity and rockiness; and mainly refer to geotechnical considerations (e.g. construction and stability of pond walls). Other limitations, including slope, and the likely presence of gilgai microrelief and acid sulfate soils, infer more difficult, expensive and therefore less suitable development environments, and a greater degree of land preparation effort. Key considerations for earthen ponds included soil properties preventing pond leakage and soil acidity (pH); the latter taking into account negative growth responses of species from unfavourable pH values (i.e. biological limitation) as well as engineering, as pH may affect the structural integrity of earthen walls. Proximity to sea water was considered for marine species although the characteristics of tides and their suitability for marine aquaculture have not been applied in this analysis therefore the full inland distance of tidal waters has not been explored. The aquaculture suitability rules, including the limitation classes and suitability subclasses for each species by pond configuration, is provided in the above referenced publication. It is important to emphasize that this is a regional-scale assessment: further data collection and analyses would be required to plan development at a scheme, enterprise or property scale.

Lineage

These aquaculture suitability raster datasets have been generated from a range of inputs and processing steps. Following is an overview. For more information refer to the CSIRO NAWRA published reports and in particular ‘Aquaculture viability. A technical report to the Australian Government from the CSIRO Northern Australia Water Resource Assessment, part of the National Water Infrastructure Development Fund: Water Resource Assessments. CSIRO, Australia.’ 1. Collated existing data. 2. Selection of additional soil and land attribute site data locations. 3. Fieldwork was carried out to collect new attribute data, soil samples for analysis and build an understanding of geomorphology and landscape processes. 4. Database analysis was performed to extract the data to specific selection criteria required for the attributes to be modelled. 5. The R statistical programming environment was used for the attribute computing. Models were built from selected input data and covariate data. 6. Create Digital Soil Mapping (DSM) attribute raster datasets. 7. Aquaculture suitability rules created for DSM attributes. 8. Suitability rules were run to produce limitation subclass datasets. 9. Final suitability data created for aquaculture options. 10. Quality assessment of these aquaculture data was conducted by on-ground and expert (qualitative) examination of outputs.