11.5 Land

11.5.1 Progress against 2011 recommendations

The 2011 State of the Environment Report¹ recommended that the ACT Government should improve monitoring to assess the impact of erosion on local land and water resources, and to help understand the interactions between the ACT’s catchment and ecosystem services. In particular:

• undertake baseline soils mapping to facilitate monitoring and assessment of soil condition
• identify indicators of land health, including soil health, vegetation quality and change, and land-use changes; and monitor and publicly report on these on a regular basis
• improve limited land-health data by including land-health assessments in water catchment data to inform soil condition across the ACT
• improve actions related to sediment and erosion mitigation.

The Government response gave in-principle support to these recommendations and acknowledged the importance of understanding soil condition and maintaining soil health. Progress has been made against these recommendations during the reporting period.

The ACT Nature Conservation Strategy 2013–23⁹ includes the priorities of:

• developing baseline information for the ACT through the mapping of vegetation communities
• developing an ACT Soils Strategy to provide a strategic approach to the completion of soil mapping, and to guide the development of a program to monitor soil condition and advise on best-practice management of different soil types and land uses.

Soil mapping and erosion assessment work has taken place:

• Soil landscape mapping was completed previously at the 1:100 000 scale for the eastern half of the ACT by the NSW Government.¹² The OEH has been contracted by the ACT Government to fill data gaps for existing ACT soil landscapes and to identify new landscapes for the western half of the ACT, using standard Australian soil survey and analytical methods. As part of the mapping process, related soil types in each landscape are described, and their chemical and physical properties and constraints identified.
• The assessment of likely hotspots for soil erosion leading to in-stream turbidity is being undertaken for the Upper Murrumbidgee Catchment in a collaboration between Icon Water, the EPD and the Murrumbidgee Catchment Management Authority.
• The EPD has contracted the OEH to complete a hydrogeological landscape framework for the ACT. This project will provide the ACT with a comprehensive salinity assessment, showing areas of high, low and medium risk in a salinity hazard risk assessment map. The framework will also assist in determining the capability of rural, urban and conserved lands for a range of land uses and management objectives.

11.5.2 Justification for the 2015 recommendations

It is encouraging to see that progress has been made on previous recommendations, and that soil mapping and landscape information have been included as priority actions in the ACT Nature Conservation Strategy. This information will allow the ACT Government to better monitor soil condition and detect any negative changes in soil health, and to look at causes and undertake measures to avoid and mitigate further deterioration, if required.

This information can also be applied to land capability assessment and can help determine the most appropriate uses for future land releases in the ACT. For these reasons, it is of high importance that the activities relating to soil and landscape knowledge marked as key priorities in the ACT Nature Conservation Strategy are fully implemented, and that data are accessible and available to inform land-use planning and management.

The major challenge in land-use and land planning in the ACT is developing Canberra in a strategic manner on a landscape scale. Rather than assessing impacts one development at a time, the landscape should be considered as a whole, and the impacts and potential for improvement taken into account. This challenge also presents the opportunity for the ACT to develop in a way that continues to conserve important aspects of our environment and biodiversity, including maintaining and improving vegetation and habitat connectivity across the Territory.

Such an approach is acknowledged in policy, including in the ACT Planning Strategy, and there is provision for strategic environmental assessments under the Planning and Development Act 2007. However, there has been no application of this mechanism, except in the context of the, Environmental Planning and Assessment Act 1999 (Cwlth). Strategic environmental assessments should be informed by effective use of the new land capability data that are becoming available through mapping work under the ACT Nature Conservation Strategy, and the improved water data coming from the ACT Basin Priority Project monitoring work.

Implementation of this approach will help to better manage the impacts of development on air, land, water, biodiversity and heritage through better land-use design and siting, planning restrictions (such as covenants) and land management arrangements. It will also highlight opportunities to protect and improve environmental values – for example, maintaining or improving connectivity, and avoiding fragmenting natural areas. Implementation will assist in addressing the biodiversity, air, water and heritage recommendations in this report.

Recommendation 5

That the ACT Government provides resources to fully implement priority actions in the ACT Nature Conservation Strategy, particularly actions aimed at developing foundation knowledge of landscape function and soils in the ACT.

Recommendation 6

That the ACT Government uses strategic environmental assessments as provided for in the Planning and Development Act 2007 to reduce and manage cumulative and cross-sectoral impacts on the environment, and take opportunities to improve sustainability outcomes.