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Assessing land use potential

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Summary

The potential of our land and soils to support particular uses has shaped the nature and development of our landscapes, industries, population growth and urban areas. Land use potential information supports policy development, planning and on-ground decision making, and should be consulted when new uses of land are being considered.

This page will help you understand:

key soil factors influencing land use potential
the concept of a ‘limiting factor’ and Liebig’s law of the minimum.

Factors affecting land use potential

Most land in South Australia is affected by soil conditions, topographic features or climatic conditions which limit land use options and productive potential. The State Land and Soil Information Framework datasets are used to show the location, extent and severity of important soil and land limitations, such as:

high levels of susceptibility to erosion
strong levels of acidity
high levels of salinity
high susceptibility to waterlogging
low plant-available water holding capacity
natural physical or chemical barriers to root growth (also known as impeding layers or subsoil constraints)
low inherent fertility
steeply sloping land
excessive surface rockiness
impeding layers that restrict irrigation drainage.

Identifying the 'most limiting factor'

Land with a high potential for a large variety of uses requires many factors to be acting in harmony. However, a single soil or landscape factor such as the examples given above, can represent a key constraint to potential uses of land.

The upright wine barrel analogy is commonly used to help understand this concept (see schematic below), where the barrel’s storage capacity represents land use potential, and the sides (staves) of the barrel represent each soil factor. The shortest stave is the limiting factor affecting the barrel’s storage capacity. Increasing the length of the other staves (e.g. increasing soil fertility) won’t improve the barrel’s storage capacity (land use potential), unless the shortest stave, the most limiting factor (e.g. soil salinity), is also addressed.

By this analogy, the most limiting factor (e.g. adverse soil or land condition) will limit land use potential. This analogy is often applied to soil nutrients and referred to as 'Liebig's Law of the Minimum'.

A wine barrel made of different sized staves, each representing a different limiting factor for soils. The lowest stave represents the most limiting factor which limits how much water can be held in the wine barrel. — Schematic illustrating the wine barrel analogy (Law of the Minimum), whereby land use potential is constrained by a particular soil or land attribute. This is a modified version of the schematic presented on the KOCH website.

Therefore, identifying the most limiting factor in a landscape is crucial for assessing land use potential and suitability. These assessments typically map or model the ‘most limiting factor’ for a particular land use or crop species (i.e. a conceptual criteria for suitability), to identify potentially suitable or unsuitable land.

Visit this page for more detailed information about land use potential models.

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