Soil-cartographic material as a basis for the development of agricultural-meliorative measures on irrigation massif and their evaluation

Abstract

The article discusses the problems of using soil-cartographic materials in the development of measures to optimize land-valuation work on the irrigation massifs of the south of Ukraine. Attention is focused on such problems as the quality of soil maps, which were compiled in the 1960s. The basis for the development of agricultural-meliorative measures are soil maps and cartograms of agro-production groups, to which most can make a number of remarks that relate to the quality of these materials, no matter how attractive they may be after the cameral correction, digitization and presentation in the form of computer GIS packages. Particular importance is given to soil cartographic materials for the assessment and evaluation of land, especially on the land market. The conducted studies made it possible to establish that the land cadastre, their evaluation and assessment in connection with the introduction of the land market in Ukraine, may contain large errors that are associated with the use of obsolete soil survey materials. Therefore, there is a need for a repeated large-scale soil survey, which cannot be carried out without providing the necessary cartographic materials and space images that would be accessible to pedologists. The second important task is the development of methodological guidelines that would take into account both the achievements already obtained and all the new developments that have emerged in soil cartography in recent decades. It can be assumed that the agricultural-meliorative measures developed on this basis to increase the productivity of land and maintain soil fertility when they are embeded will have a significant economic effect and contribute to improving the ecological situation on irrigation massif. Key words: soil maps, evaluation and assessment of land, GIS-technology, irrigated agriculture.