Land and soil across the Catchment is a fundamental part of the natural environment, supporting ecosystems and the lifestyles and livelihoods of the Catchment’s communities.
Most land in the Catchment is privately owned, with 1.4 million hectares used for dryland agriculture and 270,000 hectares for irrigated agriculture. There are 800,000 hectares of public land (Montecillo 2012), including extensive areas for conservation.
Primary industries include dairy, horticulture, viticulture, livestock production (beef, sheep, goats, pigs and poultry), cropping, timber production and aquaculture. Smaller enterprises include thoroughbred and standardbred horse breeding, nurseries, mushrooms, turf and cut-flower production. Other industry includes food processing, tourism and recreation. Land use increasingly supports lifestyle living, particularly towards the south of the Catchment.
The Victorian Geomorphological Framework combines information about landforms and landscapes to provide a useful basis for understanding land use across the Catchment. Three key landscapes and dominant soil types support the variety of land uses: the Eastern Uplands to the south, containing extensive native forests, parks and production forestry and primary production, mainly on the highland fringes; the Western Uplands, which has a variety of land uses on the western edge of the Catchment; and the Northern Riverine Plain, which comprises nearly 70 per cent of Victoria’s irrigated agriculture (Feehan 2012).