Applications of Remote sensing and GIS in Tourism potential

Abstract

Soil plays a very crucial role in supporting ecosystems and human civilization. Besides being a non-renewable and valuable resource, it has high variability in its properties and behaviour all over the World.Soil survey helps to prepare inventory of different kinds of soils and extent of distribution for the prediction of their characteristics and potentialities. Such knowledge is required for making better utilization of soils in a sustainable way. Traditional soil survey techniques are time consuming, labour intensive and costly. Recent advancements in computer and information technology have brought new techniques of soil resource mapping. Remote sensing (RS), Geographical Information System (GIS)and Global Positioning System (GPS) are such techniques for analysis the different features of soils over space and time. Present paper describes the role of RS, GIS and GPS technologies for mapping and characterizing soils at various scales. The spectral behaviour of soil and its components, which is fundamental to deriving information from RS data is also discussed.