TOOLS2 was a three year, National Action Plan / National Heritage Trust funded project carried out by NSW natural resource management agencies and CSIRO which started in late 2005. The aim was to produce an integrated software application, mainly for use by Catchment Management Authorities, to support catchment planning and investment decisions.

The major product – SCaRPA (Site and Catchment Resource Planning and Assessment Decision Support system)  – uses spatial and other data, derived from corporate databases or other sources, to drive a suite of biophysical models that predict the outcomes of land use or management change on a range of environmental values – terrestrial and aquatic biodiversity, land and soil capability, salinity, and carbon sequestration.

SCaRPA includes the functionality required to integrate, interpret and use outputs from the various models in practical ways for catchment planning and investment. Modules are included to allow planning at catchment scale, as well as property scale investment decisions using site-scale models. SCaRPA is currently available as a standalone PC applciation, but is intended for full integration with other corporate software available for use by CMAs.

Most of the catchment and site-scale models can be run independently of SCaRPA.  Documentation on many of these models is available from this website, or by contacting the relevant model developer.

Registering Bugs & Queries

CSIRO is hosting a site for registering bugs and other queries about SCaRPA and its components. This is only available to registered TOOLS2 users at: http://teams.csiro.au/clw/cmatools/issuetracker/

To register as a TOOLS2 user, please contact Greg Summerell

Learn how to log a TOOLS2 bug