NRM groups are racking up an impressive number of sample points for the National Soil Monitoring Project (NSMP). The ambitious project aims to collect approximately 30,000 samples from 3000 sites across Australia.

The purpose of the NSMP is to monitor agreed national soil health indicators and to use the data to help understand soil condition and trends.

More information about the National Soil Monitoring Program can be found here.

Wheatbelt Natural Resource Management (Wheatbelt NRM) have been doing their bit to bolster a baseline data set of soil information being made accessible via the Australian National Soils Information System (ANSIS).

As part of their commitment to the program, Wheatbelt NRM has reached 110 completed monitoring sites across Southwest WA, working towards delivering 449 sample sites by 2028.

The National Soil Monitoring Program is supported by funding through the Australian Government Natural Heritage Trust (Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry) in collaboration with CSIRO.

CSIRO is working closely with NRM regions and NRM groups across Australia to ensure timely delivery of the project, following the field sampling methodology specifically developed by CSIRO for this large-scale monitoring effort.

The project has been developed to help landholders and industry make more informed decisions around managing their soil health with a long-term view for production and agricultural resilience.

Target sites have been randomly selected from a subset of potential locations based on several key factors:

Soil type – ground truthing to verify the current soil classification during sampling using the Australian Soil Classification system.

Land use – within each soil type a selection of different land uses are sampled for comparison. Agricultural production zones with cropping, horticulture, grazing and forestry scenarios being monitored. Natural systems with unmanaged and managed natural systems being assessed.

Hosting a site is simple

The Wheatbelt NRM soils team will contact landholders who have a target monitoring site on their property to gain authorisation to collect samples and gather site information. This process includes gaining consent for the collection and public use of soil data, as well as the storage of physical soil samples.

The soils team notify the landholder of their intention to sample and negotiate suitable site and discuss suitable access.
The team will attend the property to take 10 x 1 metre deep soil cores over a 25m x 25m plot (sampling takes between 2 and 3 hours). Samples are amalgamated and bagged off at 10cm increments. Biological samples are also taken at the same time and bulk density soil pit dug on 10% of the total sites.
The landholder completes a short land use survey, which can be completed in person or over the phone, to understand current and previous land management practices.
Laboratory analysis of the chemical, biological and physical samples is undertaken with resulting data contributing to the NSMP.
Personal information is not included in ANSIS, while soil and site data are contributed to support national soil information and monitoring.

If you are interested in hosting a monitoring site on your property, get in contact with Aimee Mouritz or Surya Ginjupalli who are coming to a paddock near you soon!