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Title:	Remote sensing and GIS applications for soil survey and land evaluation in IBB governorate, the Republic of Yemen
Authors:	Mohammed Hezam Saeed Al-Mashrek (P38426)
Supervisor:	Dr. Juhari Bin Mat Akhir, Associate Prof
Keywords:	Remote sensing Soil surveys Geographic information systems
Issue Date:	3-Jan-2012
Description:	Deterioration of agricultural production relates to land degradation and unsuitable land management practices could lead to scarcity of food supply and may eventually escalate to national food security issue in Yemen. The current research was conducted in Ibb Governorate located at the Highland region of the southwestern Yemen. The main objective of this research is to integrate remote sensing and GIS techniques in assessing agricultural potential of farmland in this study area in Yemen and to enhance soil survey and land evaluation for land-use planning capabilities. It also aims to develop land evaluation tool for predicting the physical suitability of land for a selected sorghum crop under rain-fed conditions. Image processing for Landsat-5 TM images with spatial resolution of 30 meters were conducted using ERDAS software. Later a standard false color-composite image was generated using Landsat TM band 4, 3 and 2. Unsupervised and supervised classification was conducted to produce both land use categories and land degradation severity maps. Furthermore, Digital Elevation Model (DEM) of 90 m x 90 m resolution for the study area was used to produce the slope map. During the soil survey work, the processes of identifying, classifying the soils based on family taxonomy unit and correlating them to World Reference Base (WRB 2007) were conducted. A total number of 341 soil samples from 96 soil profiles were collected. Soil physical and chemical analyses were carried out for all samples. The soil map revealed that five international Soil Orders of the 2010 USDA Soil Taxonomy namely; Entisols (36%), Inceptisols (12%), Aridisols (11%), Vertisols (0.7%) and Mollisols (0.3%). Land suitability evaluation was carried out, where two models were built up namely; 1) assessment of potential land for agriculture, which was based on sixteen weighted an overlaid thematic maps by using ILWIS software and 2) physical land suitability evaluation for sorghum crop, which was based on four weighted an overlaid thematic maps by using ArcGIS. Based on the GIS data analysis, this study revealed that about 62 percent of land is suitable for agriculture (moderate potential land 41%, high potential land 19% and the very high potential land 2%) and the other 38 percent of land is unsuitable (the very low potential land 17% and the low potential land 21%). Further evaluation of the data into suitability classes show that the potential area for sorghum (61%) can be separated into three classes: 5% highly suitable (S1), 25% moderately suitable (S2) and 31% marginally suitable (S3). The unsuitable land (39%) can be divided into two classes; 24% currently unsuitable (N1) and 15% permanently unsuitable (N2). In summary, land information system and models developed from this research could be utilized for assessment of other suitable agricultural crops either in the study area or in other areas within Yemen.,Tesis ini tiada Perakuan Tesis Sarjana / Doktor Falsafah"
Pages:	321
Call Number:	G70.4.M375 2012
Publisher:	UKM, Bangi
Appears in Collections:	Faculty of Science and Technology / Fakulti Sains dan Teknologi

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