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Hydrologic Soil Groups (HSG) of NSW

Created 24/06/2025

Updated 19/10/2025

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This map provides an estimation of Hydrologic Groups of soils in NSW according to the four class system (A-D)

A — soils having high infiltration rates, even when thoroughly wetted and consisting chiefly of deep, well to excessively-drained sands or gravels. These soils have a high rate of water transmission and have low water run-off potential.

B — soils having moderate infiltration rates when thoroughly wetted and consisting chiefly of moderately deep to deep, moderately fine to moderately coarse textures. These soils have a moderate rate of water transmission.

C — soils having slow infiltration rates when thoroughly wetted and consisting chiefly of soils with a layer that impedes downward movement of water, or soils with moderately fine to fine texture. These soils have a slow rate of water transmission.

D — soils having very slow infiltration rates when thoroughly wetted and consisting chiefly of clay soils with a high swelling potential, soils with a permanent high water table, soils with a claypan or clay layer at or near the surface, and shallow soils over nearly impervious material. These soils have a very slow rate of water transmission.

The map uses the best available soils mapping coverage and was derived from a lookup table system linking a Hydrologic Group class to a particular soil type using the Great Soil Group (GSG) classification. Each dominant GSG has been assigned a Hydrologic Soil Group. The classification is based on the United State's Hydrologic Soil Group system published within the National Engineering Handbook (2007). Online Maps: This dataset can be viewed using eSPADE (NSW’s soil spatial viewer), which contains a suite of soil and landscape information including soil profile data. Many of these datasets have hot-linked soil reports. An alternative viewer is the SEED Map; an ideal way to see what other natural resources datasets (e.g. vegetation) are available for this map area. Reference: Department of Planning, Industry and Environment, 2021, Hydrologic Soil Groups of NSW, Version 4.5, NSW Department of Planning, Industry and Environment, Parramatta.

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Additional Info

Field Value
Title Hydrologic Soil Groups (HSG) of NSW
Language English
Licence Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Australia
Landing Page https://data.gov.au/data/en/dataset/809211db-76c1-4316-a59c-283097eca878
Remote Last Updated 08/10/2025
Contact Point
NSW Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water
?datansw@customerservice.nsw.gov.au
Reference Period 07/12/2011 - 24/10/2020
Geospatial Coverage
Map data © OpenStreetMap contributors
{
  "coordinates": [
    [
      [
        153.639,
        -37.505
      ],
      [
        153.639,
        -28.158
      ],
      [
        141.001,
        -28.158
      ],
      [
        141.001,
        -37.505
      ],
      [
        153.639,
        -37.505
      ]
    ]
  ],
  "type": "Polygon"
}
Data Portal DataNSW

Data Source

This dataset was originally found on DataNSW "Hydrologic Soil Groups (HSG) of NSW". Please visit the source to access the original metadata of the dataset:
https://data.nsw.gov.au/data/dataset/nsw-hydrologic-groups-of-soils-in-nsw7f9e8