Land Evaluation by Integrating Remote Sensing and GIS for Rainfed Agriculture in Koranahalli Subwatershed

Abstract

In the present study, an assessment of land suitability potential for agriculture in the Koranahalli subwatershed area has been conducted through a close examination of the different indicators of land characteristics and qualities. The objective of this study is to assess the land resource and generate a potential map of the study area. The database on soil resources and land use/land cover data was generated by using remote sensing satellite data and soil survey to perform an integrated analysis in the GIS environment. Fourteen series were identified after detailed soil survey based on the soil characteristics. About 150 soil mapping units were grouped into good and moderate and fairly good cultivable land. Soil site suitability evaluation for different crops revealed that, about 4.36 percent of area is highly suitable for sorghum, followed by 36.92, 35.20, 34.89, 33.60, 31.75 percent and 31.11 percent of area is moderately suitable for chilli, chickpea, ragi, pomegranate, sorghum and sunflower respectively. About 37.44, 31.33, 30.07, 29.81 and 29.76 percent of area is marginally suitable for cultivating tomato, redgram, ragi, sunflower and sorghum or chickpea. However, 30.94, 25.39, 5.89 and 4.95 percent of the area is not suitable for cultivating castor, sapota, pomegranate and redgram or sunflower due to the limitation of soil depth and gravelliness or stoniness.

Keywords

• environment