MAXIMISING THE VALUE OF SOIL DATA: CHALLENGES AND SOLUTIONS WE EMPLOYED FOCUS: USER CASES OF FARMING GROWER GROUPS AND CATCHMENT MANAGEMENT AUTHORITIES

We present a soil information system Visualising Australasia’s Soils’, VAS built to satisfy the user requirements of Farming Systems groups and Catchment Management Authorities at various spatial (farming, catchment, national) and temporal scales. Discovering, accessing, and using soil data of varying quality, vintages and from multiple sources presents significant challenges to these groups. A standards-based approach for ingesting, describing, harmonising and delivering out soil data to meet the end users; purposes was implemented to help overcome these challenges. Data literacy of practitioners continues as a development focus. This includes enabling practitioners to apply metadata and describe their data in a meaningful, consistent way themselves. Valuable return-for-effort for this good data management will continue to be co-developed and demonstrated.