Cadastre LULC Insight Pack

Disclaimer

Geoscape Australia believes this publication to be correct at the time of printing and does not accept responsibility for any consequences arising from the use of the information herein. Readers should rely on their own skill and judgement to apply information to particular issues.

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Overview

The Cadastre LULC (Land Use and Land Cover) Insight Pack provides cadastre-level land use and land cover classification data across Australia. This product delivers high-level land classification that enables broad environmental monitoring, carbon accounting, and land use analysis.

Product Purpose

This insight pack provides the foundational land use classification layer (cadastre_lulc) that categorises every cadastre polygon by its dominant land use across a yearly time series. The data supports:

• Broad land cover monitoring for environmental reporting and carbon accounting

• Foundation layer for more detailed agricultural and forest analysis

• Integration with Geoscape Cadastre for spatial analysis and visualisation

Product Structure

The cadastre_lulc table classifies every cadastre polygon by land use category. This top-level classification forms the basis for two specialised detail tables:

• cadastre_forest - Provides forest structure detail for polygons classified as “Forest”

• cadastre_crop - Provides crop type and harvest detail for polygons classified as “Crop Land”

Customers can subscribe to this LULC table independently or combine it with the specialised Forest and Crop insight packs for comprehensive land use intelligence.

Key Features

Geographic Coverage

This product covers approximately 5.8 million square kilometers of agricultural land across Australia, encompassing approximately 3 million Geoscape Cadastre parcels.

Agricultural areas are identified by combining the Geoscape Planning product with the Australian Land Use and Management (ALUM) Classification, published by ABARES.

Temporal Resolution

The cadastre_lulc table provides yearly temporal resolution, with classifications representing the dominant land use observed for each reporting year.

While most land use classes are determined from observations captured during the reporting year, the forest class is derived using a longer temporal assessment period. This approach analyses vegetation patterns over multiple observations to distinguish persistent forest cover from short-term land cover changes, resulting in a more stable and reliable forest classification. Consequently, forest classifications may incorporate observations spanning up to several years rather than a single annual snapshot.

Spatial Integration

Data is spatially enabled by joining to the Geoscape Cadastre product via the cadastre_polygon_pid field. This allows customers to associate land use classification data with cadastral geometries for spatial analysis and visualisation.

Delivery Format

Data is delivered as PSV (Pipe Separated Value) files with .psv extension, compatible with relational database applications and spreadsheet tools. PSV format uses the pipe character ( | ) as the field delimiter, avoiding ambiguity with comma-delimited formats where field values may contain commas.

Use Cases

This insight pack supports various land management and environmental analysis scenarios:

Environmental Reporting and Carbon Accounting

The LULC table provides broad land cover classification suitable for environmental monitoring, greenhouse gas inventory reporting, and carbon credit assessment.

Foundation for Detailed Analysis

Use as the base layer to identify areas of interest, then drill into specialised detail using the Forest or Crop insight packs for parcels requiring additional resolution.

Land Use Change Detection

Yearly time series enables tracking of land use transitions across cadastral parcels over time.

Technical Description

Agricultural Extent Definition

Agricultural areas were identified by combining the Geoscape Planning product with the Australian Land Use and Management (ALUM) Classification, published by the Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics and Sciences (ABARES). Together, these datasets provide the foundation for determining which areas can be classified as agricultural land.

Further information on the ALUM classification framework is available at the Australian Land Use and Management Classification Version 8 (October 2016) - DAFF.

Exclusions from Agricultural Classification

The following areas are explicitly excluded from agricultural land classification:

• Urban parcels - Parcels falling within Urban Centres and Localities (UCL) boundaries, as defined in the Australian Statistical Geography Standard (ASGS) Edition 3. Further information is available at Urban Centres and Localities.

• Stock routes - Linear corridors reserved for the movement of livestock are excluded from the agricultural classification.

Spatial Coverage and Tiling

The agricultural extent is partitioned into 100km × 100km tiles aligned to Map Grid of Australia (MGA) projection zones. The defined agricultural outline is used to identify which tiles intersect agricultural land — these qualifying tiles determine the scope of imagery sourced and processed for the product.

All cadastral parcels within the qualifying tiles that intersect the defined agricultural boundary are included in the final product.

This approach ensures:

• Consistent spatial partitioning aligned to MGA projection zones

• Complete cadastral coverage within agricultural regions — no parcels are partially included

• Predictable, tile-based delivery suitable for large-scale data processing

Imagery Sources

Classification is derived from Copernicus Sentinel-2 satellite imagery. Imagery acquisition, processing methodology, and temporal coverage details are subject to ongoing refinement.

Cadastral Area Calculation

Area has been calculated using a parcel’s relevant GDA2020 MGA zone. When, due to the size of a parcel, a record is split between two MGA zones, the area is split into two parts favoring the leftmost MGA zone: 7850 > 7851 > 7852 > 7853 > 7854 > 7855 > 7856.

The diagram illustrates a parcel (shaded) that straddles two MGA zones — MGA 7850 (left, green hatching), MGA 7851 (right, blue hatching) and a Tile boundary (blue line).

Coverage Area and Percentage Attributes

Coverage Area

The coverage_area attribute represents the distinct summed area based on the combination of land use category, crop/forest class, and class subtype for a cadastral polygon part.

Some coverage areas may have an area of 0m². These have been maintained to assist in explaining where the sum of Agricultural Land Use records do not match the area of the cadastral parcel.

Coverage Percentage

The coverage_pct attribute represents the percentage of the total polygon area covered by a class/subtype. Because of rounding, it is possible for the sum of coverage_pct grouped by a cadastre_polygon_pid to be greater than 100% (e.g. 100.02%).

Example of LULC classification for there cadastre parcel where cadastre_pid = ‘cad8b928e5e82a9’ and cadastre_polygon_pid = ‘cp6f696f51e73e5’.

Example cadastre_lulc records

cadastre_lulc_pid	cadastre_polygon_pid	cadastre_pid	year	state	total_cadastre_area	lulc_class	coverage_area	coverage_pct
aglk7SGgxF5c5Vd	cp6f696f51e73e5	cad8b928e5e82a9	2025	NSW	1394622.48	Forest	31900	2.29
aglNycKGHfl7qD-	cp6f696f51e73e5	cad8b928e5e82a9	2025	NSW	1394622.48	Crop Land	1259328.84	90.30
aglTnKxtQMUX4I3	cp6f696f51e73e5	cad8b928e5e82a9	2025	NSW	1394622.48	Built Up	68493.63	4.91
aglB7vt_om8s40j	cp6f696f51e73e5	cad8b928e5e82a9	2025	NSW	1394622.48	Range Land	34900	2.5

Data Model

Data Dictionary

Table: cadastre_lulc

The top-level land use classification table. Each row describes the coverage of a land use class for a given cadastre polygon in a given year.

Columns

Column	Type	Nullable	Description
cadastre_lulc_pid	character string(15)	NOT NULL	Primary key — unique identifier for this record
cadastre_polygon_pid	character string(15)	NOT NULL	Unique persistent identifier for the cadastre polygon
cadastre_pid	character string(15)	NOT NULL	Persistent identifier for the cadastral feature for the life of the lot’s title
year	number(4)	NOT NULL	Calendar year the coverage data relates to
state	character string(3)	NOT NULL	Australian state or territory code — see domain values
total_cadastre_area	number(14,2)	NOT NULL	Total area of the cadastre polygon (square metres)
lulc_class	character string(20)	NOT NULL	Land use / land cover classification — see domain values
coverage_area	number(14,2)	NOT NULL	Area of the cadastre polygon covered by this land use class (square metres)
coverage_pct	number(5,2)	NOT NULL	Coverage area as a percentage of the total cadastre area

Notes

• Crop Land rows represent the total cropped area for a cadastre polygon. For crop class and crop name breakdowns, see the Cadastre Crop Insight Pack (cadastre_crop table).

• Forest rows represent the total forested area for a cadastre polygon. For forest structure classification, see the Cadastre Forest Insight Pack (cadastre_forest table).

Domain Values: lulc_class

Value	Description
Waterbody	Areas where water is predominantly present throughout the year, including natural and artificial water features such as lakes, ponds, and irrigation reservoirs
Built Up	Human-made structures and large impervious surfaces, including roads, rail networks, buildings, and residential housing
Pasture/Fallow	Areas described as the natural potential plant cover composed principally of native grasses
Crop Land	Landscapes cultivated to produce food crops, including single crop land (cultivated once per year) and multiple crop land (cultivated more than once per year)
Barren Land	Landscapes where the surface is largely composed of little to no vegetation, typically devoid of significant soil development
Plantation/Trees	Areas managed for the cultivation of perennial crops maintained over several years before harvest; distinct from annual cropping systems
Range Land	Open areas predominantly covered by natural grasses, wild cereals, and low-growing vegetation with minimal tall trees or dense plant cover
Forest	Areas primarily covered by trees and natural vegetation

Domain Values: state

Value	Description
NSW	New South Wales
VIC	Victoria
QLD	Queensland
SA	South Australia
WA	Western Australia
TAS	Tasmania
ACT	Australian Capital Territory
NT	Northern Territory