Adapting modelling systems for salinity management of farms and catchments in Australia and Thailand

The Spatial Optimisation Model for Analysing Catchment Management (SMAC) model was chosen as the catchment-modelling tool in an ACIAR project on salinisation to be carried out by a research team headed by the University of Technology, Sydney and, in Thailand, the project will involve Khon Kaen University, The Royal Forest Department and the Land Development Department of the Ministry of Agriculture and Cooperatives. The SMAC has been developed to quantify the inter-relationships between socio-economic conditions, land-use and the biophysical condition of the catchment. SMAC will be applied for hydrological, economic and social modelling, at catchment and other scales to evaluate the impact of revegetation in Thailand (Lam Pao and Khorat and Australia (Liverpool Plains and Upper Macquarie Valley). This paper describes the SMAC model and discusses the methodological and other challenges of applying it in other regions with different land-use systems, economic conditions and hydrology, and a data-sparse environment.