The Problem of Dryland Salinity: how can the Department help?

摘要

Land and water degradation, especially dryland salinity, poses a serious long-term threat to the sustainability of many areas in New South Wales and is the focus of the National Dryland Salinity Project. Chief Geophysicist David Robson recently attended a three-day conference on Salinity, Land management and New Technologies in Bendigo, Victoria to present the DMR's data for areas under investigation for dryland salinity.The Department, through its Exploration New South Wales program, now has high-resolution geophysical coverage for approximately 50 percent of the State. At the Bendigo conference, a poster of the Walbundrie/Holbrook area highlighted high quality aeromagnetic, radiometric and terrain data. This area covers the Billabong Creek Catchment that forms part of the Heartlands initiative being led by the CSIRO and the Murray-Darling Basin Commission. Since the geophysical data was released, it has been value-added to form a Geoscience Data Package on CD-ROM (available through the Department). This is a GIS compilation of the geology, geophysics, interpretation, satellite imagery and previous exploration data such as drill holes, geochemical data and mineral deposits.