No. 32 Land-form Types and Vegetation of Eastern Papua

Abstract

This report collates and revises information from five previous reports covering 27,200 km² and supplements it with information from a 23,300 km² survey in 1969 and airphoto interpretation of a further 10,400 km². The report covers all of Central and Oro Provinces, the mainland component of Milne Bay Province and the southeast part of the Kerema District of Gulf Province — a total area of 60,900 km².

This report maintains the innovations in presentation developed for the Aitape–Ambunti and Vanimo Reports (No. 30 and No. 31). However, due to difficulties in correlating previous work, land-form types rather than land systems are used as the basis for classification. Land-form types are mapping units described in terms of landforms and rock types.

The 58 mapped land-form types range from 30 km² to 8,850 km² in 12 main groups. A synoptic description is provided for terrain parameters, climate, geology, landforms, stream pattern, drainage, soils, vegetation, forest potential, and land use potential with notes on correlations with land systems of other reports and relationships to other land-form types.

The report provides mapped and captioned airphoto pairs to illustrate each land-form type.

Individual disciplinary chapters describe:

1. A Climatic Classification — general climatic characteristics and water balance; and attributes of six climate classes
2. Geology — stratigraphy, structure, geological history and correlations with land-forms, soils and vegetation
3. Geomorphology — four main geomorphic units; geomorphic history and land-forming processes; relation to land-form types
4. Vegetation — characteristics of eight major types and their ecology and distribution
5. Forest Resources — classification and characteristics of forest types and summary of access categories and constraints; and notes on forest potential of land-form types

This report does not have separate chapters describing soils, land use and land classification. These are included in the earlier reports.

Map 1 — Landform Types of Eastern Papua by DH Blake, K Paijmans and JR McAlpine. Scale 1:500,000. CSIRO Land Research Series No. 32, 1973.

Map 2 — Geology of Eastern Papua by DH Blake. Scale 1:1,000,000. CSIRO Land Research Series No 32, 1973.

Map 3 — Vegetation of Eastern Papua by K Paijmans. Scale 1:1,000,000. CSIRO Land Research Series No. 32, 1973.