© 2014 PP House Efcient Natural Resources Management of Tahakapal Cluster Villages using Geospatal Technologies D. Khalkho * , S. K. Patl, S. Patel and G. P. Pali National Agriculture Innovation Project-3, Indira Gandhi Krishi Vishwavidyalaya, Raipur, Chhattisgarh (492 012), India Abstract Article History Correspondence to Keywords Manuscript No. AR741 Received in 4 th May, 2014 Received in revised form 28 th July, 2014 Accepted in fnal form 28 th July, 2014 False colour composite (FCC) of IRS-P6 LISS IV geocoded data was interpreted in conjunction with survey of India (SOI) toposheet on 1:50000 scale to extract information on existing land use/ land cover, slope, aspect and physiography for characterization and mapping of soils in the cluster village Tahakapal, Block-Tokapal, Dist.-Bastar (Chhattisgarh) under NAIP-3 project. The revenue maps of 1:4000 scale was digitized and converted to vector shape fle with attributes of feld details like owners name & caste and coverage area, perimeter etc. This revenue map was overlapped to the FCC of mosaic satellite data for retrieving the true land characterization of the project area. Five farming situations were characterized and mapped as per the local names of the agro climatic zone viz. Badi, Marhan, Tikra, Mal and Gabhar. The badi (10.7%) comprises of upland settlement, marhan (40.5%) is the upper upland, tikra (17%) is the lower upland, mal (16.1%) comprises the midland part and gabhar (15.7%) is the low lying situation. Marhan are un-bunded with steep sloped situation. Tikra is the un-bunded upland entisols with steep slope. Mal, the midland, is characterised as Inceptisol, Alfsol, bunded, fat lands and Gabhar, the lowland, comprises of bunded, Alfsol/ Vertisol supports crops like long duration paddy in Kharif followed by gram, linseed, pea in Rabi. Additional water resources in the shape of shallow dug well and farm ponds were constructed following the drainage line of the area. Site specifc land use have been suggested and demonstrated with suitable soil and water conservation measures for sustainable land resource management. * E-mail: dkhalkho@rediffmail.com Cadastral mapping, farming situations, geospatial, GIS, remote sensing 1. Introduction Land resources are under intense pressure due to ever increasing human and livestock population as well as over exploitation, resulting in acceleration of soil degradation (Velayuthum and Bhattacharya, 2000). The per capita land availability is reducing and by the end of 2025, only 0.1 ha will be available (Sarangi et al., 2005). Water is also rapidly failing with unregulated over exploitation of ground water. Statistics on water budget indicates that our country gets about 400 mham of precipitation annually, out of which 200 mham are lost in evapotranspiration. About 135 mham is available on the surface and remaining portion of precipitation joins groundwater through percolation (Sharma and Paul, 1998). As per estimate about 92 mham of the available surface water ultimately goes to the seas despite of constructions of large dams, reservoirs, check dams, water harvesting structures etc. (Sharma and Paul, 1998). The soils and farming situations differ in their morphology, physico-chemical characteristics, inherent productivity and fertility and their response to management practices vary accordingly. Thus, it is imperative to study the soils and farming situations of a particular area for sustainable land use. Due to their infuence on many of the environmental issues both direct and indirect, such as loss of biodiversity, changes in hydrological, carbon and nitrogen cycles, and climate change (Vitousek, 1994; Schilling et al., 2010; Gao et al., 2010), it is important that the areas under different land use land cover (LULC) be categorized for adapting suitable management strategies. Improper practices of LULC including deforestation, uncontrolled and excessive grazing, expansion of agriculture, and infrastructure development are deteriorating watershed conditions (Bishaw, 2001), at various temporal and spatial scales (Bisht and Tiwari, 1996). Farming situation comprises of similar conditions of soil type and land use land cover with acute correlation to the land slope. The topography is bifurcated in fve local farming situations which was distributed mainly based on soil, land use and slope criteria. The spatial variability of felds is generally overlooked Full Research Article 319 International Journal of Bio-resource and Stress Management 2014, 5(3):319-325 DOI:10.5958/0976-4038.2014.00575.2