Characterization and Utilization of Natural Resources for Planning at Microlevel for Sustained Productivity in Rainfed Agro-Eco System

Abstract

It is realized that the land, water and plant resources need to be characterized, developed, used and managed efficiently in an integrated and comprehensive manner for sustained crop productivity in general for other areas and for rainfed agro-eco systems in particular. For characterization of soil resources, the synoptic coverage and high resolution of remotely sensed satellite image (Standard FCC imagery of IRS-ID, LISS-III) and topographic data analysis procedures are required. If this procedure is not available, alternatively, the available soft copy of the soil map and drainage map at micro watershed level of the state may be used for preparing the thematic map on soil resource, which will be of broader category. For accurate delineation of different soil units contained in the soil map, detailed soil survey is essentially required. It is expected that, the above cited evaluation will be highly helpful for better land use planning and management at basin/watershed level, and this will also help in the areas of ground water exploration, soil and water conservation and watershed management. For characterization of rain water resources, and its consequent use at micro level requires strengthening of the net work of rainguages by installing automatic weather stations at each of the panchayat level for accurate assessment of rain water supply status. Further, it is also required to have combination of normalized differential vegetation index (NDVI) and surface skin temperature (TS) temperature – vegetation dryness index (TVDI) and Apparent thermal inertia (ATI).