Catchment Scale Land Use of Australia: 50m Resolution National Map

A national raster dataset showing the single dominant land use across Australia as of December 2020, compiled at a 50-metre resolution. It was produced by the Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics and Sciences (ABARES) by combining state and territory data under the Australian Collaborative Land Use and Management Program. The dataset uses the Australian Land Use and Management Classification version 8 and updates specific regions from a previous 2018 version.

Use Cases

• Analyzing changes in agricultural land use based on the updated regional mapping mentioned in the description.
• Modeling environmental impacts of land management based on the primary management objective classification.
• Planning natural resource management (NRM) at a catchment scale based on the seamless national raster data.
• Comparing land use patterns across state and territory jurisdictions based on the compiled national dataset.

Strengths

• Provides a seamless national land use map at a consistent 50-metre resolution.
• Updates specific regions (e.g., Tasmania, Sydney basin) with newer data (2017-2019) compared to the 2018 version.
• Classified according to a standardized national system (Australian Land Use and Management Classification version 8).

Limitations

• The date of the underlying source mapping varies from 2008 to 2019, which may affect temporal consistency.
• The scale of the original source mapping varies from 1:5,000 to 1:250,000, reflecting heterogeneous data quality.
• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.

Provenance

Source

Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics and Sciences (ABARES).

Collection Method

Compiled from vector land use datasets collected by state and territory mapping programs, combined with land tenure, satellite data, and field information.

Time Range

Source mapping dates range from 2008 to 2019, compiled into a snapshot as of December 2020.

Freshness

Dataset reflects land use as of December 2020, with metadata last updated in May 2026.

Geography

Australia (national coverage).