Local Level Agricultural Planning Using GIS

Abstract

Geographical Information System (GIS) is a computer based technology that describes, stores manipulates and analyze information spatially and produces outputs in map and tabular form for decision making in the planning aspects of agricultural development. Land, soil, and land used pattern are the most vital factors for growing more crop yield from a part of land. In case of Bangladesh soil quality and land type varies widely within a small area of land. This study will focus mainly on to categorize the soil texture and land type that exist in Jibannagar thana of Chuadanga district using GIS. Moreover, the suitable cropping pattern for that area were also identified using GIS technology. In order to accumulate all the qualitative and the quantitative data, the "Thana Nirdeshika" booklet for the Jibannagar thana prepared by the Soil Resources Development Institute (SRDI), Ministry of Agriculture (MOA), Bangladesh, was used. The digital data source that has been created by the GIS project of Bangladesh Agricultural Research Council (BARC) has also been used for the study. From this study it is found that four map units remain predominantly High Land (PHL), one HL and two predominantly Medium High Land (PMHL) which indicate to use winter crop, HYV rice, Broadcast Aus and Aman rice based cropping pattern. Key words: Land type, soil texture, cropping pattern, GIS.