Victorian Land Use Information System 2016-2017

The Victorian Land Use Information System (VLUIS) 2016/17 dataset has been created by the Spatial Information Sciences Group of the Agriculture Victoria Research in the Department of Economic Development, Jobs, Transport, and Resources. It covers the entire landmass of Victoria and separately describes the land tenure, land use and land cover across the state at the cadastral parcel level.

The methodology for creating the VLUIS is described in Morse-McNabb et al. (2015) with the following notable changes:
1. Land use data provided by the Office of the Valuer-General of Victoria for the 2014 year has been used as a base input. Readily available sources of land use information from government and industry have been used to provide updates to the land tenure and land use components of the 2016/17 dataset. The source dataset and source date are recorded for each parcel. The land cover mapping method remains unchanged to previous versions of the VLUIS.
2. The Australian Land Use and Management (ALUM) Classification, version 8, has been added to the attribute table. The VLUIS land use code fields have been translated across to the ALUM classification. Version 8 has been used you can find the ALUM Classification on the Department of Agriculture and Water Resources ABARES ALUM page: http://www.agriculture.gov.au/abares/aclump/land-use/alum-classification. 
3. Land parcels within urban areas, mapped in previous versions, have been masked out and have been renamed as Built Up Areas vastly reducing the size of the 2016/17 dataset. Land cover for Built Up Areas (LC_CODE = BUILT) is listed as null.
4. Road reserves and road parcels have been merged together and renamed Voids. Land cover for Voids (LC_CODE = VOID) is listed as null.
5. Parcels <12.5 hectares: land cover has not been attributed as the resolution of MODIS cannot support classifications of polygons smaller than 12.5 hectares.

The data is in the form of an ESRI feature class. 

To use the VLUIS data correctly it is important to understand the difference between the three components of VLUIS. The Guidelines for land use mapping in Australia: principles, procedures and definitions, Edition 3 published in 2006 by the Commonwealth of Australia, defines them as follows: 
Land tenure is the form of an interest in land. Some forms of tenure (such as pastoral leases or nature conservation reserves) relate directly to land use and land management practice. 
Land use means the purpose to which the land cover is committed. Some land uses, such as agriculture, have a characteristic land cover pattern. These usually appear in land cover classifications. Other land uses, such as nature conservation, are not readily discriminated by a characteristic land cover pattern. For example, where the land cover is woodland, land use may be timber production or nature conservation. 
Land cover refers to the physical surface of the earth, including various combinations of vegetation types, soils, exposed rocks and water bodies as well as anthropogenic elements, such as agriculture and built environments. Land cover classes can usually be discriminated by characteristic patterns using remote sensing.

A metadata statement, for the VLUIS product, and ESRI symbology files for the data can be freely downloaded from the VLUIS project page on the Victorian Resources Online website: http://vro.agriculture.vic.gov.au/dpi/vro/vrosite.nsf/pages/vluis

DOI 10.26279/5b96043f7bd02

Tags: Environment, Farming, Society
Organization: Department of Energy, Environment and Climate Action