LIS Combined With RS For A Long Term Sustainable 
Land Use In Karst Terrane, South Western China 
Ru Jinwen 
Liu Guanghui 
Ma Zulu 
(Geological Academy Sinica, Institute of Karst Geology, 
PO Code 541004, Guilin, Guangxi, PR China) 
Commission N , Working Group 1 
Key Words : 
Abstract 
Land use, Classification ,Landsat, Integration, GIS 
The largest karst region in the world is located in South Western China. Soil loss and bar- 
ren karst were serious due to deforestation and increasing of population in the past 
decades. Land resources inventory by using TM data classification and GIS/LIS are the 
basic assessment of a long term sustainable land use. SKset is the sofware for the land in- 
formation system (LIS) developed in the last decade by author’s group. Zhenyun county, 
Guizhou province in the eastern of karst terrane was chosen as the test area. County level 
LIS was constructed successfully for decision making in protecting soil loss, suitable anal- 
ysis, land use management etc.. 14 city/county in karst terrane are being extented to con- 
struct LIS combined with RS in the term 1994— 1997. 
INTRODUCTION 
Karst is the terrane with solube rocks de- 
ferring to the other terranes for the weak- 
ness of ecosystem evironment. The word. 
karst can be traced back to Pro—Indoeuro- 
pean origins and derives from “Karra” 
meaning stone. In Northern Yugoslavia is 
also a regional name for a district near the 
border of Trieste. | 
Karst is widespread in China, covering one 
third of whole country and exposed to the 
surface over one million square kilometers. 
One of the largest karst region is located in 
south western China with an area of about 
722 
540,000 square kilometers and 79 million 
population (Fig. 1). 
Soil loss and desertification (barren karst) 
were serious due to deforestation and in- 
creasing of population in the past three 
decades in the karst terrane. Land re- 
sources inventory and management by Re- 
mote Sensing (RS) and GIS/LIS are the 
basic assessment of a long term sustainable 
land use. Zhenyun county in the Eastern 
of Guizhou province was chosen as the test 
area because it located in the slope from 
Yunan — Guizhou plateau to Hunan hills 
with defferent karst geomorpholgies and 
International Archives of Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing. Vol. XXXI, Part B4. Vienna 1996