IAPRS & SIS, Vol.34, Part 7, “Resource and Environmental Monitoring”, Hyderabad, India, 2002
GIS BASED SOIL INFORMATION SYSTEM OF BILASPUR DISTRICT
FOR LAND USE PLANNING
A.K. Maji, D.B. Tamgadge, G.P. Obi Reddy and K.S. Gajbhiye
National Bureau of Soil Survey and Land Use Planning, Amravati Road, Nagpur-440 01, India.
E-mail:akmaji Q nbsslup.mah.nic.in
KEY WORDS: Bilaspur district, GIS, Land use planning and Soil information system
ABSTRACT:
GIS based natural resource information system is a vital tool in the development of manag. nent strategies of our vast natural
resources and this trend has gained special attention in district level planning in different states. In the present study, interpretation of
satellite data (IRS-LISS IT), field surveys for site and soil morphological characteristics and laboratory analysis for physical and
chemical characteristics of the soils of Bilaspur district were carried out. The soils of hummocky terrain consist of extremely shallow
to very shallow, well drained, loamy-skeletal Typic Ustorthents whereas the soils in valieys, gentle slopes and level plains are deep,
well drained and clayey. Slope analysis shows that 42 per cent district is covered by very gently sloping (1-396), 35 per cent by
gentle landforms and rest of the area is covered by moderately to steeply sloping landforms. Risks of erosion are higher on lands of
steep slopes, soil conservation measures are advocated to arrest land degradation. Nearly 83 per cent of area is covered by deep
(2100 cm) soils and 8 per cent area is under extremely shallow («25 cm) and rest of the area is covered by very shallow, shallow,
slightly deep and moderately deep soils. The textural analysis shows that 54 per cent of the area is covered by fine, 33 per cent by
fine-loamy and 13 per cent by loamy skeletal soils. The pH of the soils is slightly acidic, followed by slightly alkaline, moderately
acidic and neutral. The study reveals that such thematic maps will help the land users and land use planners in demarcating suitable
or unsuitable lands for the commonly grown crops or for alternate land use systems.
INTRODUCTION
Any scientific planning for agricultural land use requires a
detailed inventory of the soils pertaining to their physical,
chemical, hydrological and site specific properties. Computer
based natural resource information system is a vital tool in the
development of management strategies of our vast natural
resources. Storage, management and dissemination of database
is an essential component in resources appraisal and decision
making. Geographical Information System (GIS) has opened a
new era in this direction. Land use planning of a region
demands copious data on natural resources coupled with the
socio-economics and infrastructural information of a region.
The spatial information of soils and their characteristics can be
evaluated for crop suitability (Maji er aL, 2002), land use
planning (Maji et al., 1998), estimation of soil loss (Srinivas ef
al, 2002), and conservation planning (Reddy et al, 2001)
through integrated analysis in GIS environment. To fulfil this
objective, soil survey is conducted following standard
methodology and information are extracted through physical
and chemical analysis of the soils as an input to the soil
resource database. The database was created in GIS
environment.
GIS provides a very large range of analytical tools to analyse
topology or spatial aspects and attributes of the geographical
data (Burrough, 1986). GIS includes storing, restructuring,
analyzing and displaying resource data for providing
management information or for the development of better
understanding of environmental relationship (McCloy, 1995).
The geographical data is represented as spatial and non-spatial,
or attribute data. The spatial data features geometrical
orientation, shape, size and relative position on the earth
surface; and the attribute data represents features like, soil, its
depth, erosion, slope, nutrient content, etc. (Rao et al., 1994)
and can be integrated through polygon processing. McCloy
(1995) outlined the following broad steps in GIS activities;
acquisition, calibration and processing of data, creation of
746
derived information from raw data by using models and
analytical tools; presentation of the derived information and the
development of decision options. Use of GIS in natural
resource management has been demonstrated by Nair et al,
(1996), Maji and Krishna (1996) and Maji et al., (1998, 1998a)
using state and districts as planning units. As an illustration,
soil resource inventory data of Bilaspur district, Chhattisgarh
state have been used in GIS environment to generate thematic
maps for developing a suitable land use plan.
STUDY AREA
Bilaspur district in Chhattisgarh is located between 80°35' to
83°45'E longitude and 22°05' to 23°05'N latitudes with area of
9,324 km. The general elevation of the district is ranging from
260 to 600 mts above msl. The district has a hot semi-arid
climate with an annual rainfall of 1687 mm. The mean annual
temperature is 34.0°C with maximum of 41°C in the summer
months and the minimum temperature in winter is 21°C. The
soil temperature regime is 'hyperthermic'. The growing period
length ranges between 120 and 150 days. The district is situated
in Mahanadi river basin.
MATERIALS AND METHODS
The methodology comprises interpretation of satellite data
(IRS-LISS IT), field surveys for site and soil morphological
characteristics and laboratory analysis for physical and
chemical characteristics of the soils were the source of primary
data. Soils were correlated, classified and mapped. The
digitization of spatial soil data in 1:250,000 scale, geo-
referencing, edge-matching/mosaicing, topology building and
attributing of soil polygons were carried out in SPANS GIS.
The various physical and chemical and associated database of
the soils have been developed using MS-ACCESS generic
database software. These non-spatial database have been linked
to the soil polygon attribute table (PAT) using RDBMS.
Various thematic information of the district viz., soil, depth,
ras
