No. 38 Lands of the Alligator Rivers Area, Northern Territory

Abstract

The Alligator Rivers area survey covered ~35,750 km², enclosing the catchments of the Alligator River and Cooper Creek and the eastern part of the South Alligator catchment. It covered the western part of Arnhem Land Aboriginal Reserve and most of the area then proposed for Kakadu National Park. A part of the area was described in earlier reports for the Katherine–Darwin area (No. 1) and Adelaide–Alligator area (No. 25). The latter covered the remainder of the South Alligator River catchment and has 20 land systems in common with this survey area.

The survey was conducted in 1972–73 to provide information for a balanced assessment of the implications of coincident proposals for uranium mining and a national park.

The Balonne–Maranoa report (No. 34) adopted a new approach to description of land systems and land units, first identifying and describing homogenous types of country as land units, then grouping them into land systems using a new nomenclature reflecting parent material, relief and vegetation. This report further modified the approach. It gives a general description of each land system with more detailed descriptions of each component land unit. Land systems are of mappable extent and an artificial key is provided to assist identification. Land units are (usually) too small to map but more detailed information for each unit is provided to assist identification on the ground.

The report has seven individual disciplinary chapters:

1. Climate and Water Balance
2. Geology
3. Geomorphology
4. Soils
5. Vegetation
6. Erosion
7. Land Use

There are three appendices that:

• describe 15 soil families
• list plants with their common names
• show correlations between soil conditions and plant growth

Map 1 — Land Systems of the Alligator Rivers area, Northern Territory by R Story, RW Galloway, JM Aldrick and MAJ Williams. Scale 1:250,000. CSIRO Land Research Series No. 38, 1976.

Map 2 — Soils of the Alligator Rivers area, Northern Territory by JM Aldrick. Scale 1:500,000. CSIRO Land Research Series No. 38, 1976.

Map 3 — Vegetation of the Alligator Rivers area, Northern Territory by R Story. Scale 1:500,000. CSIRO Land Research Series No. 38, 1976.

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

Editor's Note: Prospecting had led to the Ranger uranium discovery in 1969. Mining commenced in 1980. A national park was proposed in 1965 but Stage 1 was not established until 1979.