## 3 Approaches to Managing Soil and Landscape Information and Knowledge
### Providing Spatially Contexted Soil and Landform Information at Different Levels of Generalisation  
Victoria has a rich legacy of soil and landform mapping that dates back to the 1940s and there are more than 100 published reports covering different areas of the State. These vary greatly with respect to mapping scale, survey method and purpose, intensity of site observations and soil classification methodology. In the past 15 years, a number of regional revisions to this mapping have been undertaken but there still remains a variety of polygonal soil/landform mapping coverages in the corporate GIS database, at varying scales and without sufficient attribution to be useful to non-specialists. Image-based maps are prepared for the VRO website in association with appropriate specialists to provide the best-available map coverage, presented at the most appropriate scale and linked to associated descriptive content. Figure 8: 1:100,000 map sheet showing locations of Sites of Geological and Geomorphological Significance that can be clicked to reveal information derived from the original report. © State of Victoria, Department of Primary Industries 1997 Reproduced with permission. The Geomorphology Reference Group was established in 1995 with the aim of reviewing the Geomorphic Divisions of Victoria. The group consists of seven mainly retired specialists (most now into their late seventies and eighties) who, between them, have over 200 years experience in soil, landform and geological survey in Victoria. The VRO project has been effectively working with members of the GRG since 1997, forming an informal \"knowledge network\" to guide the development of a revised mapping framework for Victoria. This association has resulted in clickable maps depicting geomorphological units for each region in Victoria, linked to map unit descriptions developed by GRG members and including images provided by them (as slides and photographs that have been scanned). The VRO website displays region-specific soil/landform mapping at various scales and levels of generalisation. An example is the development of soil and landform information for the West Gippsland region of Victoria. Revised soil/landform survey mapping (1:100 000 scale) was undertaken over an eight year period beginning in 1994 by Dr [PERSON], a retired Departmental employee (and member of the GRG) and subject matter expert on the soils and landforms of West Gippsland region. Information developed from this survey was progressively published on the website, on a map sheet basis. Web content includes regional overview soil maps, 1:100,000 soil/landscape maps, soil pit site descriptions and associated descriptive information. Throughout the survey, a focus was maintained on capturing the tacit knowledge of the expert and making it explicit as spatially-based information products. Figure 9 is an example of a 1:100,000 scale soil/landform map for part of the West Gippsland region. The legend of this map is clickable, leading to descriptions of map units (as shown in Figure 10). Map unit descriptions provide context with respect to regional distribution, geology, landform, vegetation and soil types. Much of this context resides as tacit knowledge in the expert's mind and can be made explicit through text, images and diagrammatic representations (an example of which is shown in Figure 10-being a diagrammatic representation of the relationship between mapping units and local geomorphology). Representative soil site descriptions and analytical data collected during surveys are provided for many of the map units (Figure 11 is an example). This is an example of \"spatial contexting\", whereby data is only made accessible on VRO if it is appropriately contexted (in this case to a soil/landscape mapping unit) which in essence makes it \"information\". Some interpretation of data is provided (e.g., management considerations) as well as graphical representations where appropriate (e.g., showing change in key soil properties with depth).