Ecology, Environment and Conservation Paper

DEVELOPMENT AND TESTING OF A SOFTWARE (LACAP) TO ALLOCATE THE LAND USE CAPABILITY CLASS

Amresh Chandra Pandey

Abstract

A software named as LaCap has been developed with the help of numerical weightage method, as a handy tool to allocate the Land Use Capability Class to any particular land and also an alternate Land Use Capability Classification System to the existing. The existing Land Use Capability Classification for India is almost the true copy of United States Department of Agriculture Land Use Capability Classification system with very few minor changes; and thus this Indian Land Use Capability Classification is mainly based on Agroeconomic structure of USA which is not suitable to Indian Agro-economic structure. In the existing LUCC system of India, the land has been classified into eight classes, out of which first four classes are recommended as suitable for cultivation and classes V to VIII are recommended as not suitable for cultivation. The suitability and not suitability for cultivation are irrelevant in Agro-economic structure of India and for the Indiansubcontinent as well. One basic concept adopted in the present classification is that all those lands which are “economical to cultivate are suitable for cultivation”. The various land classes directly reflect upon the productivity of land and degree of management practices adopted to maintain its productivity. In the proposed pattern of land classification, many factors have been considered and all these factors have been given a weightage on marks basis and this helps in clear and distinct contribution of these factors in land class determination. With the help of the present software, classes has been allocated to the sixty-four Soil Series of India, considered as Bench Mark Soils of India by National Bureau of Soil Survey and Land Use Planning, ICAR and compared with the existing land class, resulted as 95.3% correct. This software based on award of numerical weightage is very precise, accurate, without ambiguity and very convenient means to determine the land class.