Abstract
Microcomputer-based Geographic Information Systems (GIS) are proving to be a most powerful tool in land resource evaluation. In this paper, examples on how to use this technology are provided for national, district, and watershed evaluation. At the national level a spreadsheet was developed to determine consumption/production balances for food, feed, and fuelwood using the Land Resource Mapping Project (LRMP) and current population growth data as a basis. With the GIS technique, national maps were produced to indicate districts with surplus, sufficiency, and deficit situations for the three resources for 1981, 1989, and 2000. For Kabhre District, which showed deficits for food, feed, and fuelwood, runs of the model were made to illustrate what would be required to eliminate these deficits. Studies were made to determine how much increase in crop yields, how much population migra- tion, how much livestock reduction, and how much expansion in forest plantations would be needed to arrive at food, feed, and fuelwood sufficiency levels in this district. In all cases, the effort required to achieve sustainable conditions appears to be enormous. Finally, GIS techniques were applied to the Jhikhu Khola watershed where a three-year monitoring program is under way to determine water balances, sediment budgets, erosion rates, and soil fertility changes in five sub-basins and two integrating stations in the watershed. GIS techniques facilitated the production of microclimatic maps of the watershed and these in combination with soil maps can be used to develop an afforestation plan that matches site conditions with desirable tree species. GIS also plays a key role in the selection and extrapolation of sub-basins and in evaluating agricultural land most subject to soil fertility decline.
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