Computer-Assisted Land Resource Management Using Remote Sensing and GIS Technology*

Pastoral properties in inland Australia are large and subject to an erratic and unpredictable climate. Management of such lands is ecological in nature, of a low energy input and involving actions that seek to modify, rather than control, the natural forces operating on the land. The well-being of human activities in the rangelands depends on the land and the ability to maintain it in a productive condition. To achieve an optimum productivity, the land manager must be able to monitor conditions at a level commensurate with the large areas involved, the typically low productivity per unit area, and the constrains of labour availability. Remote sensing technology is recognised to be appropriate tool for rangeland management due to its ability to provide information on the state of land cover and biomass on a regular, continuous and near real-time basis. However, to use these data in the real-world application, the remotely-sensed data must be processed and interpreted in the context of geographical and historical information. It is now widely recognised that the remotely-sensed data are of maximum value when they are integrated into an efficient spatial data handing system which forms a basis for