Australian Irrigation Area Boundaries and Designations

Vector data delineates both designated administrative boundaries and actual observed irrigation areas across Australia. The dataset was compiled by the National Land and Water Resources Audit from multiple state and basin-level agencies. It is available in both vector and raster formats, with the raster version aligned to the 1996/97 Land Use of Australia dataset.

Use Cases

• Overlay irrigation boundaries with land use raster data to analyze land cover changes in irrigated zones.
• Compare designated administrative irrigation areas with actual observationally defined boundaries to assess policy implementation.
• Identify irrigation areas within specific regions like the Murray-Darling Basin or Tasmania for water allocation modeling.
• Use the vector format for spatial queries to find irrigated zones with associated water use rights and obligations.

Strengths

• Compiled from multiple authoritative state and national agencies including Agriculture WA and the Murray-Darling Basin Commission.
• Available in both vector and raster formats with aligned coordinate systems for easy overlay.

Limitations

• Coverage is incomplete, with irrigated areas existing outside the mapped boundaries and non-irrigated areas inside them.
• The scale and completeness of source material is highly variable across different regions.

Provenance

Source

National Land and Water Resources Audit, with data from Agriculture WA, Queensland Department of Natural Resources and Mines, Murray-Darling Basin Commission, NSW Department of Land and Water Conservation, and Tasmanian Department of Primary Industries, Water and Environment.

Collection Method

Constructed by appending irrigation area boundary datasets supplied by various agencies, processed in ARC/INFO and ArcView.

Time Range

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Freshness

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Geography

Australia