Southwest Australia Severe Salinity Extent 2018

Southwest Western Australia salinity mapping from 2018, vectorized from a 25-meter pixel raster. The Department of Primary Industries and Regional Development produced this dataset using satellite imagery, topographic data, and ground information to identify severely salt-affected land. It updates prior 1990 and 1998 estimates with improved computational methods.

Use Cases

• Analyze the spatial extent of severely salt-affected land for regional environmental monitoring.
• Compare vectorized salinity polygons from 2018 to earlier 1990 and 1998 estimates to detect change.
• Integrate vector salinity data with ancillary GIS datasets for land management planning.
• Apply post-processing to remove urban areas from salinity extent analysis for non-urban land assessment.

Strengths

• Derived from a raster with 25-meter pixel resolution, providing detailed spatial granularity.
• Updates and refines prior salinity mapping from 1990 and 1998 using improved computational resources.
• Includes post-processing to remove urban areas, focusing analysis on agricultural and natural lands.
• Created by the authoritative state Department of Primary Industries and Regional Development.

Limitations

• Specific row and column counts, sample data, and dataset size are unknown.
• The methodology primarily detects changes within the severe salinity class, potentially missing subtler variations.
• Relies on satellite imagery and models; ground-truth verification for all areas may be limited.

Provenance

Source

Department of Primary Industries and Regional Development (DPIRD) Geographic Information Services.

Collection Method

Spatial-temporal methodology applied to consecutive Landsat TM scenes, using satellite imagery, high-resolution topographic data, ground information, and ancillary GIS datasets.

Time Range

2018.

Freshness

Data represents conditions from 2018; metadata was last updated in March 2026.

Geography

Southwest region of Western Australia.