Map Units Research Articles

Study of land suitability for rubber and cashew in the derived savanna zone of Edo State, Nigeria

This study attempted to assess the soil suitability in the derived savanna zone of Edo State, Nigeria for the cultivation of some tree crops. The research specifically aimed to evaluate soil suitability for cashew and rubber supported by suitability maps for both crops. In terms of land suitability evaluation, mapping units 1 and 2, with an area coverage of 27.4 ha of the entire research area (100 ha) were found to be marginally suitable (S3) for rubber cultivation but moderately suitable (S2) for cashew. Mapping unit 3, with area coverage of 38 ha was found to be currently not suitable (N1) for rubber but marginally suitable (S3) for cashew cultivation. Mapping unit 4 representing area coverage of 34.7 ha was found to be permanently not suitable (N2) for rubber cultivation but marginally suitable (S3) for cashew. Thus, technically, rubber can only be cultivated in that land at marginal level with an expected productivity of 27.4 ha (27.4 %). Cashew can be cultivated at moderate and marginal levels with an expected yield of 27.4 ha (27.4 %) and 72.6 ha (72.6 %), respectively, of the total land area. Thus, the preferred crop for the studied is cashew. It is recommended that for any significant investment in cultivation of this crop, the priority is the moderate levels with an expected productivity of 27.4 ha or 27.4 % of total land area.

Land suitability assessment of soils for rubber and cashew cultivation in the Coastal Area of Bodo City, Rivers State, Southern Nigeria

The research was carried out in Bodo city in Gokana Local Government of Rivers State, Southern Nigeria to evaluate the land suitability for rubber and cashew cultivation using the relevant land suitability guidelines for the cultivation of the two cash crops of interest. Mapping of the 100 ha of land in Bodo city was done using the rigid grid method of soil survey. The three mapping units (summit, middle slope and valley bottom) were identified and delineated. Three representative soil pedons of 2 m x 2 m x 2 m were dug and described by horizon from top to bottom (0 cm to 200 cm). Soil samples were collected from identifiable horizons and processed for laboratory analysis using standard routine laboratory methods most appropriate. The results showed that pedons 1 and 3 covering 86,000 ha of the entire study area were found to be moderately suitable for rubber cultivation with limitation in soil physical characteristics (texture) and fertility (low base saturation < 50 %). Pedon 2 covering 14,000 ha of the total land of the study area was marginally suitable due to limitation in soil fertility (low base saturation < 80 %). Pedon 1, 2, and 3 were also moderately suitable for cashew cultivation in the study area with limitation in soil physical characteristics (texture) and fertility (low organic carbon), while limitation in wetness (poor drainage) was peculiar to pedon 3 only. Thus, soils in the study area were moderately suitable for both rubber and cashew cultivation in the area.

Suitability assessment for oil palm (Elaeis guineensis) and coconut (Cocus nucifera) cultivation in coastal plain sands of South Southern Nigeria

Some soils of coastal plain sands in South Southern Nigeria were assessed for oil palm and coconut cultivation. This research was carried out to evaluate the soils of the study area using rigid grid soil survey methodology at detailed scale. The study area (128.11 ha) was delineated into four soil mapping units based on soil type. A pedon was sunk in each mapping unit and described according to FAO. Three soil orders, including Entisols (Ahiara), Inceptisols (Kulfo) and Ultisols (Orlu), were identified. Parametric and limitation methods of land suitability evaluation were used. Major limitations to assessment were climate (mean annual temperatures) and soil physical properties (texture/structure). Aggregate suitability rating (both actual and potential) showed that Ultisols (pedons 3 and 4, covering 56.73 ha) was moderately suitable (S2) for coconut and marginally suitable (S3) for oil palm, Inceptisols (pedon 2, covering 54.25 ha) was marginally suitable (S3) for coconut but not suitable (NS) for oil palm, and Entisols (Pedon 1covering 17.13 ha) was not suitable (NS) for any of the crops. Thus, area with Entisols should not be used for cultivation of any of the crops due to major limitation in texture. Moreover, both assessment approaches captured the major limitations. Therefore, the use of any of the approaches employed in this study and for these crops becomes a matter of choice as both of them showed no major differences in the application of their procedures.

GIS based Land Use Suitability of Diversified Cropping Systems in Bareli Watershed

A study was undertaken to evaluate the soils in Bareli watershed, Seoni district of Madhya Pradesh for sustainable land use planning. Five soil series namely, Diwartola, Diwara, Bareli-1, Bareli-2 and Bareli-3 were tentatively identified and mapped into twenty-four mapping units and a soil map was generated using remote sensing and Geographic Information System (GIS) techniques. The land information generated during soil survey has been used to evaluate land capability, land irrigability, soil productivity and soil-site suitability for some medicinal, aromatic and spices crops. The soils were grouped into land capability sub-classes IVs and IVst and land irrigability sub-classes 2st, 3s, 3st and 4st. Soils of Diwartola, Bareli-1 and Bareli-3 were average and soils of Diwara and Bareli-2 were poor in soil productivity based on limitations of erosion, drainage and physicochemical properties. Soil-site suitability assessment reveals that soils of Bareli-1 were moderately suitable (S2) for cultivation of medicinal and spices crops like Ashwagandha, Mucana, Davana, Lemongrass, Turmeric and Ginger with moderate limitations of effective depth and slope, while, soils of Diwartola and Bareli-3 were marginally suitable (S3) for cultivation of these crops.

Pengaruh Kemiringan Lereng terhadap Kerusakan Tanah di Giritontro, Wonogiri

The Effect of Slope Gradient of land on the Soil Damage in Giritontro, Wonogiri. Soil degradation is one of the problems in agriculture that affects the level of quality and carrying capacity of the soil for certain land uses. This study aims to analyse the status of soil degradation, the effect of slope, the determinant factor, and recommendation for land management.It was conducted in Giritontro District, Wonogiri Regencywith survey methods by field verification, taking soil samples and laboratoryanalysis based on Regulation of The Government of Indonesia Number 150 of 2000. Analysis unit is land map unit (LMU) which obtained from an overlay of mapssoil types, slope, rainfall, and land use. There were 12 LMU, and repeated 3 site samplings in each it. The result shows that the status of soil degradation was classified as slightly degraded (R.I) in all area research of 5.016.37 ha. The slope has a very significant effect on soil degradation. Slope 26-40% has significant highest score of soil degradration. Determinant factors were soil bulk density and porosity, therefore giving organic matter and optimizing tillage were recommended to improve land quality.

JENIS-JENIS ANGGREK (Orchidaceae) DI TAMAN WISATA ALAM GUNUNG TAMPOMAS

The existence of orchid species in Gunung Tampomas Natural Tourism Park is still not widely known. The existence of orchids many endangered by both natural decay and excessive exploitation of orchids. Communities in Gunung Tampomas Natural Tourism Park had very little information about the beauty and benefits in particular, because of the lack of information regarding the species of orchids in the Gunung Tampomas Natural Tourism Park. The object of research is inventaritation of orchid species to conservation of orchid species in Gunung Tampomas Natural Tourism Park. The method of the research used by Exploration with determination cruise lines based LMU (Land Mapping Units). The result of orchid species are 11 species of epiphytes which has been identified as many as 10 species; one species is identified only to genus and 2 species of terrestrial orchid.

Land suitability evaluation for surface irrigation development using parametric evaluation approach: The case of Gudina Wacho watershed, Western Ethiopia

Evaluating land suitability of a given watershed is vital to predict potential and limitation of the land for surface irrigation. The present study was evaluated the suitability of Gudina Wacho watershed for surface irrigation development using parametric evaluation approach. The watershed was classified in to four lands mapping units, based on three soil profile pits were opened at each land mapping unit. Soil samples from each profile pit have been taken to analyze each selected soil physical and chemical properties. Slop analysis of the watershed was computed from the DEM using GIS technique. Results of the land suitability evaluation for surface irrigation showed that, a total area of 3064 ha (72.6%) was slightly suitable (S3) and area of 1154 ha (27.4%) was currently not suitable (N1). The limiting factors were slop, soil texture and drainage. For all land mapping units, chemical soil parameters such as CaCO3, ECe and pH, and the physical parameter (soil depth) were not limiting factors for surface irrigation in the study watershed. Therefore, the area is potential for irrigation production with some limitations and under proper management it can benefit the local community to meet the food demand. In order to sustainably develop the area for irrigation development; land leveling operation or soil conservation work has to be incorporated to break surface slope and to make it suitable for surface irrigation.

The Effect of Change in Function from Paddy Field to Dry Land on Soil Fertility Index

This research studied the effect of the change in function from paddy field to dry land on the soil fertility index. The research was conducted in Girimarto Sub-district, Wonogiri District, in the Province of Central Java. The five stages of the research were: determination of Land Mapping Units in areas with a change in land use; field survey; laboratory analysis; determination of Minimum Data Sets (MDSs) or Minimum Soil Fertility Index (MSFI); analysis of Soil Fertility Index (SFI). The research results show that the change in function of 231 ha of land in Girimarto Sub-district is due to the topographical factor of the mountain region and the shortage of water. This change in land function has caused an increase in the soil fertility index. Soil fertility in paddy fields is classed as moderate but after undergoing a change in function to dry land, its classification increases to moderate-high. The increase in soil fertility index of dry land is due to the fact that farming patterns on dry land use more animal manure, which has a long-term residual effect on organic matter content. In order to maintain and improve the fertility of paddy field soil, it is necessary to add organic fertilizer as well as inorganic fertilizer.

Progressive kernel pruning with saliency mapping of input-output channels

As the smallest structural unit of feature mapping, the convolution kernel in a deep convolution neural networks (DCNN) convolutional layer is responsible for the input channel features to output channel features. A specific convolution kernel belongs to a specific group from the perspective of the input channel, and it belongs to a specific filter from the perspective of the output channel. If the input and output channels are simultaneously considered in the pruning process, the performance of the pruning model can be further improved. This paper proposes progressive kernel pruning with salient mapping of input-output channels, introduces the concept of input-output channel saliency and defines single-port salient mapping channels and dual-port salient mapping channels. This study demonstrates that single-port salient mapping channels can ensure that each input channel signal has a relatively strong convolution kernel mapped to the output channel, and vice versa. The dual-port salient mapping channel is a channel with high feature mapping abilities from both the input and output directions. Additionally, the average mapping ability measure index is defined, which is used to control the kernel pruning process of the single-port salient mapping channel to switch to the kernel pruning process of the dual-port salient mapping channel. The experimental results and analysis show that the method proposed in this paper can be used to effectively prune a heavyweight model and a lightweight model and can obtain a better accuracy under the conditions of higher compression ratio and acceleration ratios. For example, when VGG-16 is pruned on CIFAR-10, the compression ratio and acceleration ration are 91.00× and 15.24×, respectively, and the classification accuracy of the model decreased slightly by 0.22%. When ResNet-101 is pruned on ImageNet, the compression ratio and acceleration ratio are 3.90× and 3.38×, respectively, and the classification accuracy of the model decreased slightly by 0.48%. The proposed method is significantly better than state-of-the-art methods.

Soil patterns as a factor of crop heterogeneity

Crop heterogeneity constitutes the basis for taking managerial decisions in precision farming systems. Although the general perception is that heterogeneity within a plot is related to heterogeneity of soil cover, this needs further study and remains an active subject of research. This paper examines the relationship between the heterogeneity of different crops in the Tula region of the Russian Federation based on vegetation observations during the period 2015–2020 with the mapping units of a large (scale 1:10,000) soil map. NDVI values calculated from Sentinel-2 satellite data were used as a measure of crop heterogeneity. The comparison of NDVI values and the soil mapping units showed that there is a degree of correlation which, however, was not particularly high. Results indicate that correlation depends on the crop type, the phenological phase of vegetation, as well as on the meteorological conditions during the vegetation season, the soil moisture and the presence of weeds. It could be concluded that the soil map alone cannot be used as a reliable source for explaining crop heterogeneity in the Tula region and that other factors should be considered.

Are soil phenoforms the new normal? Soil classification and soil mapping in the Anthropocene

The proposed Anthropocene epoch is characterized by intense human intervention on the soil resource. To characterize this, two concepts have been defined. Soil genoforms are the central concepts of mappable soil bodies, including permanently altered soils. These are represented by soil profiles which are the soil “individuals” of soil classification, and are based on relatively permanent soil characteristics. Soil phenoforms are persistent, but reversible, non-cyclical variants of a soil genoform with sufficient physical, chemical or biological differences to substantially affect soil functions, especially regulation and production functions. Soil phenoforms are the result of differential soil management and are directly linked to the soil security concept of soil condition. Map-unit based soil survey and classification has typically identified and mapped soil genoforms, ignoring the diversity of soil phenoforms that may be found within map units, and consequently their differential functioning. This latter is especially important in the evaluation of the soil resource with respect to the Sustainable Development Goals of the UN. Developments in digital soil mapping suggest that it may be feasible to identify and map soil phenoforms in regularly-updated soil survey. This has implications for soil classification: (1) some soil genoforms as presently defined contain more than one stable soil genoform, and so should be split into several genoforms; (2) soil phenoforms should be recognized as dynamic forms within the soil classification system. An open challenge is how to identify and efficiently map soil phenoforms in regularly-updated soil survey.

Effects of land use on soil degradation in Giriwoyo, Wonogiri, Indonesia

This study aimed at determining the effect of land use on soil degradation, discovering the indicator as a determinant factor of soil degradation, and providing recommendations for land management to improve soil productivity. This study was conducted in agricultural lands in Giriwoyo, Wonogiri, Indonesia, and the observation indicator adopted by the Indonesian Government Regulation concerning Soil Degradation Control for Biomass Production. The methodology used was survey research with purposive sampling points in 12 land mapping units, and each unit was represented three times. The result showed that the study area was slightly and moderately degraded. Land use significantly affected soil degradation, and the paddy field has the highest degradation in the study area. Soil characteristics as degradation factors in the study area were soil texture, bulk density, and total porosity. Strategy for land management can be made by limiting the use of chemical fertilizers, and changing the use of chemical fertilizers into compost, to increase soil organic content, and accelerate the availability of nutrients.

Populations using public-supply groundwater in the conterminous U.S. 2010; Identifying the wells, hydrogeologic regions, and hydrogeologic mapping units

Most Americans receive their drinking water from publicly supplied sources, a large portion of it from groundwater. Mapping these populations consistently and at a high resolution is important for understanding where the resource is used and needs to be protected. The results show that 269 million people are supplied by public supply, 107 million are supplied by groundwater and 162 million are supplied by surface water. The population using public supply drinking water was mapped in two ways: the census enhanced method (CEM) evenly distributes the population across populated census blocks, and the urban land-use enhanced method (ULUEM) distributes the population only to certain urban land use designations. In addition, a two-dimensional polygon dataset was created for the conterminous U.S. that identifies 177 unique Hydrogeologic Mapping Units (HMUs) with similar hydrogeologic characteristics. The HMUs do not overlap, but they can delineate areas where stacked hydrogeologic regions (HRs) contribute drinking water from below the surface. HRs are waterbearing geologic regions identified as either a principal aquifers (PA) or secondary hydrogeologic regions (SHR). Within each HMU, the wells were used to determine the proportion of each HR that is providing groundwater to the HMU. In 63% of the HMUs, a single HR is providing water to the public supply wells located within it, while the rest of the HMUs show that the wells are tapping up to a maximum of four stacked HRs. In total, groundwater from 108 HRs provide drinking water for public supply, six of which provide more than 50% of the groundwater used for public supply drinking water. The aquifer serving the largest number of equivalent people (>17 million) is the glacial aquifer. The HR providing the greatest number of people per km2 is the Biscayne aquifer in Florida at nearly 453 people per km2.

Organizational motifs of cortical responses to objects emerge in topographic projections of deep neural networks

Visual system responses to object images have a systematic topography along the two-dimensional cortex, with selective regions for faces and places located meaningfully within a larger weaker organization of animacy and object size. Interestingly, standard deep convolutional neural networks do not have explicit topography or category-specialized mechanisms, but nonetheless learn feature tuning that has a significant correspondence with neural responses. Here we developed a method to explore the implicit topography within these deep neural network representations, by smoothly mapping the learned feature spaces with a simulated two-dimensional cortex trained using self-organizing principles. We projected a 20x20 grid of map units into the 4096-dimensional feature space of the FC6 layer of object-trained AlexNet, where nearby units on the map have similar tuning. This simulated cortex reflects a smooth spatialized representation of the data manifold in this layer, while still capturing much of the representational geometry of the original deep net layer (r=0.67). Next, we calculated the simulated cortical responses to several localizer image sets. We found a large-scale organization of animate vs inanimate response preferences. Further, clusters of face-selective and place-selective units were evident, even though the object-trained Alexnet wasn’t optimized with specialized mechanisms for these categories. As in the human brain, these emergent face regions were within animate preferring zones, while place regions were generally within inanimate zones. Finally, these results were not obtained in randomly initialized projections. Overall, these topographic projections reveal that some of the known large-scale organizational motifs of tuning properties across the human occipitotemporal cortex are implicit in the representational structure learned by deep convolutional neural networks. Broadly, this work provides evidence that the entire object-selective cortex may reflect a smoothly mapped, integrated feature space (Prince & Konkle, 2020), and introduces a new method to link hypothesized representational spaces and spatialized cortical responses.

Cenozoic stratigraphy of South Africa: current challenges and future possibilities

AbstractThe Cenozoic stratigraphy of South Africa has developed over the past 166 years since geological mapping of the region was initiated. The current status of lithostratigraphy and the global chronostratigraphic framework is discussed in the context of the diverse Cenozoic regolith across the region. Geological mapping here utilizes lithostratigraphy to organise the Cenozoic deposits, although some extensive units are characterised informally using lithological descriptors. Although there are no formal biostratigraphic units, the allied use of “Land Mammal Ages” compiled from fossil type sites is described. An analogous archaeological cultural-historical “technocomplex” stratigraphy is outlined to subdivide stone age cultural material commonly associated with Quaternary deposits and has often been used as a relative dating framework. A summary table of Cenozoic regolith is presented, differentiating deposits into their terrain morphologically defined Geomorphic Province context as a means of correlating similar deposits across the subcontinent. For mapping units based on lithological characteristics, the use of lithodemic nomenclature to characterise units in each geomorphic province is proposed as a temporary measure to enhance inter-regional correlation and encourage further research that could lead to formal lithostratigraphic descriptions.

Local soil classification [soil association/soil slope–soil series], world reference base, and USDA soil taxonomy: roles in soil survey execution

The objective was to do a comparative assessment of the best roles of three classification systems, [the “USDA-Soil Taxonomy”; the “World Reference Base (WRB)”; and the presumably Soil Association/Soil Series Concept of Nigeria] in Soil Survey execution from Soil Mapping through to Soil Survey Report. In this instance the concern of this paper is mostly what is best applicable when mapping legend is being defined during field research and/or field activities for mapping and publication purposes. The soils used are derived from basement complex rocks (Ilero at 08.05N/03.22E) and the coastal sediments (Igbodu at 6.28’13’’N/4.19’30” E) in the sub-humid and humid parts of southwest Nigeria respectively. The soils pattern reflects the topo-sequence and/or litho-sequence concepts with a typical sequence of soils on the crest, shoulder and/or upper slope, middle slope, lower slope, fringe and/or valley bottom positions. At the mapping phase, the WRB nearly corroborates the intrinsic qualities of the Soil Association-Soil Series concept. This comparison is fully developed when the characteristics of the different classification units are compared to the morphological expression as shown in the Soil Association-Soil Series concept. However, it should be noted that the philosophy behind these two systems only slightly overlap as classification systems adaptable for soil mapping purposes [field and post field] at the level of soil management requirements – large scale ; while USDA Soil Taxonomy is best at small scale and for better understanding of soil genesis of the mapping units.

Arahan Pengembangan Hutan Rakyat untuk Penanganan Lahan Kritis di Kabupaten Sukabumi, Provinsi Jawa Barat

Community forest plants can be an alternative fulfillment of raw material for the timber industry. While Sukabumi Regency is region with the largest area in West Java Province, so it the potential for development of community forest plants. This study wants to find the availability of land for development community forest plants, analyzing the suitability of community forest plantations, and formulating direction for development community forest plants in Sukabumi Regency. The study was conducted in Sukabumi Regency, which began in February-August 2019. The data used is the weight of each criteria for suitability of community forest plants from experts, data Land Map Units from BBSDLP, land use maps, RTRW maps, forest area maps, and land licensing. The method used is spatial analysis for determining available land, Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) for determining criteria weights, Multi Criteria Evaluation (MCE) for analyzing land suitability, and spatial analysis for determining development priority directions. The results showed that availability land for development of community forest plants in Sukabumi Regency was 57,786 hectares. The available land area in Sukabumi Regency which is classified as suitable (S1, S2, S3) i.e 57%. The development of community forest plants is directed at priority 1, which is an 83%.

Volcanic geology of the easternmost sector of the Trans-Mexican Volcanic Belt, Mexico

ABSTRACT This work presents the volcanic geology of the easternmost sector of the Trans-Mexican Volcanic Belt, including the Serdán-Oriental basin and Cofre de Perote-Citlaltépetl volcanic range, two contrasting Quaternary volcanic fields. The first comprises dominant monogenetic volcanism of bimodal composition including isolated rhyolitic domes and tuff rings, basaltic andesite maar volcanoes, cinder and lava cones, and an active caldera complex (Los Humeros). The second is dominated by large composite polygenetic volcanoes of andesitic-dacitic composition, including the shield-like compound Cofre de Perote volcano, La Gloria and Las Cumbres complexes, and the active Citlaltépetl stratovolcano. Mapping units include a pre-volcanic basement made of metamorphic (Paleozoic), and sedimentary (Jurassic-Cretaceous); intrusive (Miocene) rocks; multiple basaltic-andesitic lava flows and rhyolitic domes; volcaniclastic sequences (debris avalanches and lahars; and pyroclastic deposits (block-and-ash flows, ignimbrites, fallouts, and surges) (Miocene-Holocene). This map provides a comprehensive view of the highly diverse volcanism, which may reference for future research work.

A subaqueous soil‐landscape conceptual model to guide soil survey in Chesapeake Bay subestuaries

AbstractRhodeRiver, a subestuary on the western shore of Chesapeake Bay, contains a diverse array of subaqueous soils that range from submerged paleosols to fine‐textured fluid soils and organic soils. A subaqueous soil survey was completed for the Rhode River subestuary by collecting bathymetric data, delineating landforms, and sampling and describing soils across the submerged landscape. Soil map units were developed by correlating soil properties and taxonomic classification with delineated landforms, resulting in the development of seven proposed soil series corresponding to new soil map units. Geologic maps and other supporting information about the dominant factors of soil formation in this landscape were used with the soil survey of Rhode River to develop a conceptual subaqueous soil‐landscape model of soil genesis to explain the origin and distribution of soils in Rhode River. This is the first time that a subaqueous soil‐landscape model has been developed for the flooded river valley geomorphic setting of Chesapeake Bay, and it will assist subaqueous soil surveys in other western shore Chesapeake Bay subestuaries and similar environmental settings where upland environments have been or are currently submerging.

​Soil Suitability for Growing Pulses in Northern Dry Zone of Karnataka

Background: A soil suitability evaluation of Kanamadi South sub-watershed in the Northern Dry Zone of India was carried out during April 2019 to define the soil fitness for the production of pigeonpea, chickpea, greengram and cowpea the four major pulses that are widely grown in the area. Methods: A detailed soil survey of Kanamadi South sub-watershed was carried out using IRS P6 LISS-IV image and Vijayapura district toposheet. The soils of Kanamadi south sub watershed were grouped into 19 mapping units based on studied 50 profiles. The studied physical and chemical properties were evaluated using the FAO (1976) framework for land evaluation was followed in the evaluation of soil-site suitability for major crops grown in Kanamadi South sub-watershed. This classification recognized two orders of land suitability, order ‘S’ (suitable) and order ‘N’ (not suitable) which are further subdivided into land suitability classes. Result: The studied 19 mapping units were moderately (S2) to marginally suitable (S3) for pigeonpea and greengram having marginal to severe limitations of rainfall and soil physico-chemical properties and none to slight limitation of land form characteristics. The mapping units were moderately suitable (S2) to marginally suitable (S3) for chickpea and cowpea having moderate to severe limitation of temperature, rainfall, depth and pH and none to slight limitation of land form characteristics. The suitability of the study area for all the pulses were said to be moderately suitable (S2) for growing pulse crop for improving productivity and improving biological nitrogen fixation.