Country: Australia
Key Area: Other Infrastructure
Services: GIS

Opus was engaged to conduct a Land Capability Assessment (LCA) for Albany Green Stage 2 and give engineering comment on constructability. The assessment included analysis of the geology and landforms, vegetation, and historical land-uses. Site Soil Investigations were carried out in the field and in the laboratory by Opus and Albany Soil and Concrete Testing. The LCA was conducted as per the Department of Agriculture Land Capability Assessment Guidelines, with the proposed Rural Residential zoning being assessed against the criteria of Rural Residential with on-site effluent disposal (Land Capability Assessment for Rural Strategies 1989). The field assessment information (Data) was displayed using a GIS (Geographic Information System) platform; ArcView. This enables the user to accurately map different areas of the site which have different attributes and display them with many other attributes, for example geology, vegetation and land uses. The investigation into the sites soil types resulted in four different soils which were able to be mapped over an aerial image along with other information as detailed before. This combined with a development plan illustrates areas which are, or are not, capable of supporting the development.