These contiguous suitable area data are based on the land suitability data from the Flinders and Gilbert Agricultural Resource Assessment (FGARA). To address on-ground operational farming constraints imposed by parcels of suitable land being too small or oddly shaped according to natural variability of land, or physical limits on suitable farming land parcel sizes, contiguous suitable area data was generated. This contiguous suitable area data is based on crop-specific minimum areas and minimum length/width of contiguous suitable land and is produced as standalone data products for all crop groups. The rules are provided for download. The data was generated to remove the component of landscape complexity that natural distributions of soil and land variability and specific crop requirements produce. This data provides improved land evaluation information to identify opportunities and promote detailed investigation for a range of sustainable development options. The land suitability evaluation methods used to produce the underlying data are a modification of the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) land evaluation approach. The land suitability analysis is described in full in the CSIRO FGARA published report ‘Land suitability: technical methods'. A technical report to the Australian Government from the CSIRO Flinders and Gilbert Agricultural Resource Assessment, part of the North Queensland Irrigated Agriculture Strategy. The naming convention for these data is; ‘crop group’ underscore ‘major crop’ underscore ‘season code’ underscore ‘irrigation type code’ underscore ‘catchment code’ underscore ‘data type’ eg ‘CG7_CottonGrains_D_Fw_G_ContigArea’ is Cotton and grain crops grown in the dry season with furrow irrigation in the Gilbert catchment contiguous suitable area data. The codes for season are; W – wet season; D – dry season; P – perennial. The codes for irrigation type are; S – overhead spray irrigation; T – trickle irrigation; Fd – flood irrigation; Fw – furrow irrigation; R – rainfed. It is important to emphasize that this is a regional-scale assessment: further data collection and detailed soil physical, chemical and nutrient analyses would be required to plan development at a scheme, enterprise or property scale. Several limitations that may have a bearing on land suitability were out of scope and not assessed as part of this activity (refer to the report), these limitations include biophysical and socio-cultural. For example these land suitability raster datasets do not include consideration of the licensing of water, flood risk, risk of irrigation induced secondary salinity, or land tenure and other legislative controls. Some of these may be addressed elsewhere in FGARA eg flooding was investigated by the Earth observation remote sensing group in the surface water activity. The Flinders and Gilbert Agricultural Resource Assessment provides a comprehensive overview and integrated evaluation of the feasibility of aquaculture and agriculture development in the Flinders and Gilbert catchments as well as the ecological, social and cultural (indigenous water values, rights and aspirations) impacts of development.
