No. 13 General Report on Lands of the Tipperary Area, Northern Territory, 1961

Abstract

CSIRO’s first survey of the Katherine–Darwin area in 1946 identified the Tipperary land system as one of three priorities for more detailed study. CSIRO established a research station at Katherine in 1946 and undertook this survey in response to a request from the Territory administration.

This survey covers an area of 19,425 km² in the Daly River basin and the report subdivides the Tipperary system into 20 new land systems ranging in area from about 100 km² to 2,500 km². Each has between four and eight land units and 126 units are described in terms of their relative area, landforms, soils and vegetation with their position in the landscape shown on block diagrams.

The report has seven individual disciplinary chapters:

1. Climate — describes principal climatic controls and rainfall characteristics and relates rainfall to water requirements for agriculture with and without irrigation
2. Geology — outlines five periods of geological history and briefly describes relations between geology and land systems
3. Geomorphology — recognises nine regions in two major provinces, discusses ‘land-forming processes’ and describes landscape history
4. Soils — identifies and describes eight broad soil groups with 22 soil families and outlines their distribution in a framework of land systems grouped according to their geomorphic situation
5. Vegetation — identifies three plant types according to their drought resistance, describes vegetation communities and tree and grass species, and shows the frequency of their associations with the 22 soil families
6. Pasture Lands — outlines key features of the environment for pasture type, growth and utilization and shows the relationships between pasture types, land systems and six types of pasture land
7. Agricultural Characteristics — outlines crop-soil relationships and implications for agricultural development, including irrigated agriculture

Map 1 — Lands of the Tipperary area, Northern Territory, Australia. One sheet: Land Systems by RL Wright. Scale 4 miles to 1 inch. With insets: Geology by JA Mabbutt; Soils by RHM van de Graaff; Pasture Lands by NH Speck. CSIRO Land Research Series No. 13, 1964.

The map was digitised by the Northern Territory Government with permission of CSIRO. Access to the digital file can be obtained from the NT Department of Natural Resources, Environment, the Arts and Sports

Editor's Note: At the time of survey, the area had a very small population, estimated at less than 1,600. The population in 2011 is closer to 11,000.