From the earliest archaeological records of western civilisation, one of the most important and interesting kinds of geographical line has been between “the desert and the farm”. There has been a great interest in the study of such boundaries from past millennia, but, in most cases, we have had little evidence about their establishment or demise. A good example of pressures and changes at the margins can be obtained from a review of the factors associated with the establishment of Goyder’s Line in the upper north of South Australia. George Goyder drew a line in 1865 as a boundary between areas with more reliable rainfall suitable for cropping and less reliable rainfall suitable for extensive grazing. Shifts in the climate risk represented by Goyder’s line have been used to illustrate the impacts of significant year-to-year variations in climate as well as longer term climatic changes on low rainfall farming in South Australia. The aim of this study is to characterise Goyder’s line in terms of the bio-physical and climatic determinants that define it currently and how it might shift in a changing climate. While previous studies on Goyder’s Line have been studied in point or line transects, the current approach applies a spatial transect analysis and segmented buffer approach. Key climate variables of current and projected rainfall, evaporation, rainfall – evaporation ratio; cropping areas, soil water holding capacity, texture and multi-temporal NDVI/EVI across the Goyder’s Line have been considered in this study.