Database

PNG natural resources and agricultural systems information

During the 1970s and 1980s, the Division of Land Research of the Australian Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization (CSIRO) group developed an informational database on the natural resources of Papua New Guinea (PNG), using a land systems approach. This database has become known as PNGRIS, the PNG Resource Information System. The unit of data acquisition is known as the Resource Mapping Unit (RMU), which is based on geomorphological characteristics of land identified from aerial-photo interpretation, qualified with information on lithology, rainfall and altitude (as a surrogate for temperature). Approximately 4,000 RMUs were identified and mapped in PNGRIS. Besides, a number of other databases which also use RMUs as the mapping unit were linked to it: soils (erosivity, erodibility, present fertility, parent material), constraints (inundation, mass movement, tectonicity and vulcanity) and forest type (levels of disturbance, stocking rates). The latest version of PNGRIS became available for use in late 1995. That version of PNGRIS contained no information on agricultural practices.
A CSIRO Land Research team began to collect information on smallholder semi-subsistence agricultural systems in PNG in the mid-1970s. They developed, for each RMU in PNGRIS, a file which listed all of the available published information on agricultural practices in each RMU. The information was categorized and rated and entered as coded data. In the field, surveys were carried out in all highland provinces.
In 1991, the Land Management Project in the Research school of Pacific and Asian Studies at the Australian National university (ANU) was established. In collaboration with the CSIRO group, they began to systematically integrate information on agricultural systems and created a database of PNG agricultural systems, at the same mapping scale as PNGRIS, but using different mapping units. The mapping unit is the 'agricultural system', and is defined by the following attributes: the type of fallow vegetation cleared at the beginning of the cropping period, the number of crops planted before a long fallow, the length of the fallow period, the staple crops, soil fertility maintenance practices other than a long fallow, and spatial and temporal arrangements of crops. This project has become known as MASP, Mapping Agricultural Systems in PNG.
The MASP database can be accessed electronically by serious researchers upon request. Also, the data are available in hard copy: for every province in PNG, a Working Paper has been produced, containing the data in basic English, text descriptions, extended notes and references.
Contact: Dr Bryant Allen, Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies, The Australian National University, ACT 02000, Australia.
E-mail bja406@coombs.anu.edu.au
Fax: +6-249-4986.

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