Global Map of Irrigation Areas

Australia

Distribution of irrigated areas by Statistical Local Areas of the Australian Bureau of Statistics [AU01] according to a database of agricultural statistics [AU02]. The statistics refer to the area actually irrigated in the cropping season 1996/97. The total irrigated area added up to 2 056 581 ha. The irrigated area was distributed within the 1 322 statistical local areas using a digital map showing the outlines of irrigated areas [AU03] and a land use map on a 0.01 degree resolution [AU04]. The land use map refers to cropping season 1996/97 and it also indicates, whether a grid cell is irrigated or not. The land use map is based on vegetation indices which were derived from satellite images. An affinity theme indicates the affinity of the cell to the allocated control site and thus it is an indicator for the reliability of the match. This information and the attributes of the irrigation map have been used to find the cells within the statistical local areas, which are most probable irrigated (see priorities in Table 1). Irrigated area was first distributed only to cells having priority 9, then to cells having priority 8 and so on until the sum of the distributed irrigated area was equal to the irrigated area of the specific statistical local area as derived from the agricultural database.

Table 1: Criteria for assigning priorities to grid cells to distribute irrigated areas within statistical local areas

The distribution of irrigated area by sub-national units is listed in the table below.

References

[AU01]: Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS): Statistical Local Area (SLA) boundaries 1996, version 2.6, ABS, Commonwealth of Australia, 1996.
[AU02]: Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS): A spatially consistent sub-set of AgStats data 1982/83 to 1996/1997, BRS, Commonwealth of Australia, 1998.
[AU03]: Bureau of Rural Sciences (BRS): Australian Irrigation Areas Version 1a, National Land and Water Resources Audit, Compiled by Bureau of Rural Sciences from data supplied by Agriculture WA, Queensland Department of Natural Resources and Mines, Murray-Darling Basin Commission, NSW Department of Land and Water Conservation and Tasmanian Department of Primary Industries, Water and Environment, BRS, Commonwealth of Australia, 2001a.
[AU04]: Bureau of Rural Sciences (BRS): 1996/97 Land Use of Australia, Version 2, National Land and Water Resources Audit, BRS, Commonwealth of Australia, 2001b.

Distribution of irrigated area in Australia by Federal State.