Choosing Representative Reference Catchments

A survey has found that it would be desirable to preserve representative catchments in Eastern N.S.W., so that they can be available as references for scientific studies of water and land resources. Scientists and water engineers in N.S.W. and interstate were asked if they considered it useful to preserve representative catchments, and if so, what sizes of undisturbed area they would prefer. At the same time as the above investigation, it was required that catchments which were representative, should be selected. However, it was first necessary to decide which areas were sufficiently similar to each other, to be considered as belonging to the same group. This was finally resolved using a cluster analysis in terms of four sets of parameters, which described respectively soil moisture, soil type, temperature and vegetation structure.