5.1. Proportional make-up of land
The landscape of the Murrumbidgee Catchment has been extensively modified by agricultural and urban development. The table below gives an overview of proportional make-up of land in the Murrumbidgee catchment. (Data from Peischl et al., 2012).
LAND-USE IN THE MURRUMBIDGEE CATCHMENT
AREA (KM2) AREA (%)
closed forest 1,310 1.6
open forest 13,381 16.4
plantation 1,148 1.4
woodland 4,537 5.6
woody pasture 1,107 1.4
shrubby pasture 5,534 6.8
pasture 34,406 42.2
irrigated pasture 1,402 1.7
winter crops 13,704 16.8
summer/fodder crops 2,260 2.8
irrigated crops 1,141 1.4
cotton 2 <0.1
horticulture 330 0.4
irrigated horticulture 158 0.2
bare ground 54 0.1
intensive use 312 0.4
water 819 1.0
The total area described here is 81,605 km2 and excludes urban areas. It must be noted that land use is dynamic and the area under pasture or winter crops will change year to year. Irrigated agriculture is especially prone to change, dependent as it is on the availability of water. The area under rice, for instance, has in recent memory varied from 22,000 hectares to 66,000 hectares (Singh, Mullen and Jayasuriya, 2005). Additionally, these figures give no indication of the regional breakdown of land use practices. These are examined in the following section.
References and Resources
• Peischl, S., Walker, J. P., Rüdiger, C., Ye, N., Kerr, Y. H., Kim, E., Bandara, R., and Allahmoradi, M. 2012. The AACES field experiments: SMOS calibration and validation across the Murrumbidgee River catchment. Hydrology and Earth System Sciences, 16, 1697-1708.
