DOI:10.1068/b31073 A review of rural land-use planning models <s> Land evaluation <s> (...). The LESA system uses a measure of soil productivity to evaluate land quality and a series of questions or site factors to evaluate suitability of a site for urban development. The tests were part of a class exercise for a land use course in agronomy to determine, first, if student responses to LESA were the same as the instructors and if the students were consistent among themselves and, second, to determine if any of the site factors used in LESA were especially difficult to analyze. Five sites in Hamilton County, Indiana, were selected for analysis. (...) <s> BIB001 </s> DOI:10.1068/b31073 A review of rural land-use planning models <s> Land evaluation <s> SUMMARY ::: The rigid-data model consisting of discrete, sharply bounded internally uniform entities that is used in hierarchical and relational databases of soil profiles, choropleth soil maps and land evaluation classifications ignores important aspects of reality caused by internal inhomogeneity, short-range spatial variation, measurement error, complexity and imprecision. Considerable loss of information can occur when data that have been classified according to this model are retrieved or combined using the methods of simple Boolean algebra available in most soil and geographical information systems. Fuzzy set theory, which is a generalization of Boolean algebra to situations where data are modelled by entities whose attributes have zones of gradual transition, rather than sharp boundaries, offers a useful alternative to existing methodology. The basic principles of fuzzy sets, operations on fuzzy sets and the derivation of membership functions according to the Semantic Import Model are explained and illustrated with data from case studies in Venezuela and Kenya. <s> BIB002 </s> DOI:10.1068/b31073 A review of rural land-use planning models <s> Land evaluation <s> . ALES, the Automated Land Evaluation System, is a microcomputer program that allows land evaluators to build their own knowledge-based systems with which they can compute the physical and economic suitability of land map units, in accordance with the FAO's Framework for Land Evaluation. The economic suitability of a land mapping unit for a land utilization type is determined from the predicted annual gross margin per unit area. Increasing limitations result in increased costs of production, decreased yields, or both. Evaluators build decision trees to express inferences from land characteristics to land qualities, from land qualities to predicted yields, and from land qualities to overall physical suitability. A representative model is described. <s> BIB003 </s> DOI:10.1068/b31073 A review of rural land-use planning models <s> Land evaluation <s> Abstract TANG HUAJUN* J. DEBA VEYE* RUANDA** E. VAN RANST* In this study, the fuzzy set theory is applied to the field of land evaluation. The result of the land suitability classification for a defined land utilization type applied to a land unit, is no more a single land suitability class, as in the tradtional set theory, but an expression of the degree of belonging of the land unit to each of the discerned suitability classes. This principle is applied to a land assessment for grain maize in Hahen County, China. The classification results obtained with the fuzzy set method show a closer relationship with observed yields than previously proposed suitability classification methods. Key-words Fuzzy sets, land suitability classification, maize. 1. INTRODUCTION Land evaluation is concerned with the assessment of land performance for specified land utilization purposes. Such evaluation is essential in the process of land use planning, because it may guide decisions on land utilization in such a way th at the resources of the environment are optimally used and that a sustained land management is achieved. Land suitability classification is an approach in land evaluation that con­cerns the appraisal and grouping of specific areas of land in terms of their suitability for defined uses (FAO, 1976). The FAO proposed a general classi- <s> BIB004 </s> DOI:10.1068/b31073 A review of rural land-use planning models <s> Land evaluation <s> SUMMARY ::: Because conventional Boolean retrieval of soil survey data and logical models for assessing land suitability treat both spatial units and attribute value ranges as exactly specifiable quantities, they ignore the continuous nature of soil and landscape variation and uncertainties in measurement which can result in the misclassification of sites that just fail to match strictly defined requirements. This paper uses fuzzy classification to determine land suitability from (i) multivariate point observations of soil attributes, (ii) topographically controlled site drainage conditions, and (iii) minimum contiguous areas, and compares the results obtained with conventional Boolean methods. The methods are illustrated using data from the Alberta Agricultural Department experimental farm at Lacombe in Alberta, Canada. Data on site elevation and soil chemical and physical properties measured at 154 soil profiles were interpolated by ordinary block kriging to 15 m × 15 m cells on a 50 × 50 grid. The soil property data for each cell were classified by Boolean and fuzzy methods. The digital elevation model created by interpolating the elevation data was used to determine the surface drainage network and map it in terms of the numbers of cells draining through each cell on the grid. This map was reclassified to yield Boolean and fuzzy maps of surface wetness which were then intersected with the soil profile classes. The resulting classification maps were examined for contiguity to locate areas where a block of minimum size (45m × 45m) could be located successfully. In this study Boolean methods reject larger numbers of cells than fuzzy classification, and select cells that are insufficiently contiguous to meet the aims of the land classification. Fuzzy methods produce contiguous areas and reject less information at all stages of the analyses than Boolean methods. They are much better than Boolean methods for classification of continuous variation, such as the results of the drainage analysis. <s> BIB005 </s> DOI:10.1068/b31073 A review of rural land-use planning models <s> Land evaluation <s> In this paper the information content of Boolean and fuzzy-set-based approaches to the problem of analyzing land suitability for agriculture within a geographical information system (GIS) is assessed. First, the two approaches to this problem are stated and formalized in the context of land-suitability evaluation. A database comprising 642 unique areas, 7 land qualities, 13 land characteristics, and 2 crop types is defined and described. Land-use suitability ratings for two crops, wetland rice and soybean, are generated by using Boolean and fuzzy methods. Results produced by the two methods are compared in terms of their usefulness for agricultural land-use plannning. The ARC/INFO vector-based GIS software package is utilized. The study area is the Cimanuk watershed in northwest Java, Indonesia. <s> BIB006 </s> DOI:10.1068/b31073 A review of rural land-use planning models <s> Land evaluation <s> Abstract In Mediterranean regions there is little experience in using GIS as an aid to land evaluation. This paper reports a project in Greece which investigated the usefulness of such technology, Particular emphasis was also given to comparing the results of land evaluation using Boolean and fuzzy set methodologies. The need was to produce the results as quickly and efficiently as possible to aid agricultural planning. By using a GIS, a series of single factor and land evaluation maps was produced for a range of crops; a land suitability map for receipt of sewage was also derived. A comparison of results from using Boolean and fuzzy set methodologies highlighted the advantages of the latter, although critical decisions are required on choice of membership functions and weights which have a major effect on the results. <s> BIB007 </s> DOI:10.1068/b31073 A review of rural land-use planning models <s> Land evaluation <s> Abstract Many spatial decision-making problems, such as site selection or land use allocation require the decision-maker to consider the impacts of choice-alternatives along multiple dimensions in order to choose the best alternative. The decision-making process, involving policy priorities, trade-offs, and uncertainties, can be aided by Multiple Criteria Decision making (MCDM) methods. This paper presents a framework for integrating geographical information systems (GIS) and MCDM methods. In this framework the MCDM methods are classified and matched with choice heuristics used by the decision-makers in the presence of competing alternatives and multiple evaluation criteria. Two strategies for integrating GIS with MCDM are proposed. The first strategy suggests linking GIS and MCDM techniques using a file exchange mechanism. The second strategy suggests integrating GIS and MCDM functions using a common database. The paper presents the implementation of the first strategy using PC-ARC/INFO, a file exchange ... <s> BIB008 </s> DOI:10.1068/b31073 A review of rural land-use planning models <s> Land evaluation <s> Abstract Land evaluation is the process of predicting the use potential of land on the basis of its attributes. A variety of analytical models can be used in these predictions, ranging from qualitative to quantitative, functional to mechanistic, and specific to general. This paper classifies land evaluation models by how they take time and space into account, and whether they use land qualities as an intermediate between land characteristics and land suitability. Temporally, models can be of a static resource base and static land suitability, a dynamic resource base but static land suitability, or both a dynamic resource base and dynamic land suitability. spatially, land evaluation models can be of a single area with no interaction between areas, with static inter-area effects, or dynamic inter-area effects. In the most complex case, land suitabilities for several land uses are interdependent. <s> BIB009 </s> DOI:10.1068/b31073 A review of rural land-use planning models <s> Land evaluation <s> An integrated Expert Geographical Information System (EXGIS) is presented and applied for the evaluation of the suitability of soil and climatic conditions of in area of southern Greece, for five crops. EXGIS is an integration of an Expert System shell, designed for the manipulation of knowledge concerning soil suitability for agricultural uses, with the commercial GIS package PC ARC/INFO. The work was carried out for the purposes of a research program concerning the development of a Geographical Information System (GIS) for the management and evaluation of natural resources of the Pinios River basin, located in West Peloponnese, in South-Western Greece. Both the FAO system for soil evaluation and the local experience and knowledge of soil and climatic conditions were combined for the formulation of the rules of the knowledge base of EXGIS. The shell of the Expert System communicates with the commercial GIS PC ARC/INFO, under a common operating environment. <s> BIB010 </s> DOI:10.1068/b31073 A review of rural land-use planning models <s> Land evaluation <s> PRELIMINARIES. Geographical Data, Information, and Decision Making. Introduction to GIS. Introduction to Multicriteria Decision Analysis. SPATIAL MULTICRITERIA DECISION ANALYSIS. Evaluation Criteria. Decision Alternatives and Constraints. Criterion Weighing. Decision Rules. Sensitivity Analysis. MULTICRITERIA-SPATIAL DECISION SUPPORT SYSTEMS. Spatial Decision Support Systems. MC-SDSS: Case Studies. Glossary. Selected Bibliography. Indexes. <s> BIB011 </s> DOI:10.1068/b31073 A review of rural land-use planning models <s> Land evaluation <s> In an agricultural context, land evaluation is assessment for a specified kind of land utilisation. The final result of agricultural evaluation is a map, which partitions the landscapes into suitable and unsuitable areas for a particular land-use of interest. However, this approach may not represent the continuity of land. Land suitability could be better expressed by a fuzzy approach. In this paper a fuzzy methodology is used to evaluate land suitability in the Edgeroi district for various crops including barley, dryland cotton, oats, pasture, soybean, sorghum, sunflower, and wheat. This is achieved using a membership function to derive a land-suitability membership score ranging from non-suitable (i.e. 0) to suitable (i.e. 1). We express this as continuous land suitability maps using punctual kriging. An expression for overall land suitability (i.e. its versatility) and its capacity with respect to suitability to particular rotations is introduced to highlight the most productive units of soil. <s> BIB012 </s> DOI:10.1068/b31073 A review of rural land-use planning models <s> Land evaluation <s> The soil quality paradigm was originally developed in the temperate region with the overarching objective of approaching air quality and water quality standards. Although holistic and systemsoriented, soil quality focused principally on issues arising from large nutrient and energy inputs to agricultural lands. Soil quality in the tropics, however, focuses on three overarching concerns: food insecurity, rural poverty and ecosystem degradation. Soil science in the tropics relies heavily on quantitative attributes of soils that can be measured. The emotional, value-laden and ‘‘measure everything’’ approach proposed by some proponents of the soil quality paradigm has no place in the tropics. Soil quality in the tropics must be considered a component of an integrated natural resource management framework (INRM). Based on quantitative topsoil attributes and soil taxonomy, the fertility capability soil classification (FCC) system is probably a good starting point to approach soil quality for the tropics and is widely used. FCC does not deal with soil attributes that can change in less than 1 year, but those that are either dynamic at time scales of years or decades with management, as well as inherent ones that do not change in less than a century. FCC attributes can be positive or negative depending on the land use as well as the temporal and spatial scales in question. Version 4 is introduced in this paper. The main changes are to include the former h condition modifier (acid, but not Al-toxic) with ‘‘no major chemical limitations’’ because field experience has shown little difference between the two and to introduce a new condition modifier m that denotes organic carbon saturation deficit. Additional modifiers are needed for nutrient depletion, compaction, surface sealing and other soil biological attributes, but there is no sufficient evidence to propose robust, quantitative threshold values at this time. The authors call on those actively involved in linking these attributes with plant growth and ecosystem functions to provide additional suggestions that would enhance FCC. The use of diffuse reflectance spectroscopy (DRS) shows great potential on a wide range of tropical soils. The evolution of soil science from a qualitative art into a <s> BIB013 </s> DOI:10.1068/b31073 A review of rural land-use planning models <s> Land evaluation <s> Abstract The decision support system for agrotechnology transfer (DSSAT) has been in use for the last 15 years by researchers worldwide. This package incorporates models of 16 different crops with software that facilitates the evaluation and application of the crop models for different purposes. Over the last few years, it has become increasingly difficult to maintain the DSSAT crop models, partly due to fact that there were different sets of computer code for different crops with little attention to software design at the level of crop models themselves. Thus, the DSSAT crop models have been re-designed and programmed to facilitate more efficient incorporation of new scientific advances, applications, documentation and maintenance. The basis for the new DSSAT cropping system model (CSM) design is a modular structure in which components separate along scientific discipline lines and are structured to allow easy replacement or addition of modules. It has one Soil module, a Crop Template module which can simulate different crops by defining species input files, an interface to add individual crop models if they have the same design and interface, a Weather module, and a module for dealing with competition for light and water among the soil, plants, and atmosphere. It is also designed for incorporation into various application packages, ranging from those that help researchers adapt and test the CSM to those that operate the DSSAT–CSM to simulate production over time and space for different purposes. In this paper, we describe this new DSSAT–CSM design as well as approaches used to model the primary scientific components (soil, crop, weather, and management). In addition, the paper describes data requirements and methods used for model evaluation. We provide an overview of the hundreds of published studies in which the DSSAT crop models have been used for various applications. The benefits of the new, re-designed DSSAT–CSM will provide considerable opportunities to its developers and others in the scientific community for greater cooperation in interdisciplinary research and in the application of knowledge to solve problems at field, farm, and higher levels. <s> BIB014
Land evaluation consists of determining whether the land achieves the requirements of each type of use or activity. Since 1950, land evaluation has evolved towards more specific and quantified assessments, with the increasing use of nonsoil factors  . However, models such as the land capability classification system  or the United States Bureau of Reclamation (USBR) land classification for irrigated land use, designed more than forty years ago, are still widely applied. In the 1930s, mathematical models, known as parametric indices, began to be applied to determine soil production capacity. Amongst these indices, the Storie index stands out  . Other indices are described in  and  . Owing to the diversity of the existing land-evaluation systems, in 1976 the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) published A Framework for Land Evaluation, which allowed standardization of methodology and terminology. The central process of this framework is to compare the land qualities in each unit with the requirements of each land-use type, by using different procedures described in later publications (FAO, 1983; 1985a; 1985b; . The comparison procedure that has traditionally been used is the Boolean method, in which the suitability class of the area is defined by the lessfavoured land quality. This approach involves an abrupt division of the area into suitability classes, which in turn involves a great loss of information BIB005 . BIB006 propose a fuzzy-logic method, according to which an area is characterized by its membership grade to each suitability class, so that the loss of information is reduced and a greater discrimination between areas is achieved. Other applications of fuzzy logic to the combination of land qualities into FAO framework suitability classes have been carried out by BIB004 and  . BIB012 have incorporated into the FAO framework a semiquantitative system to obtain continuous land-suitability maps. Likewise, the FAO framework has served as the basis for computer applications such as the automated land evaluation system, ALES BIB003 ), or MicroLEIS (De la Rosa et al, 1992 . The first land-evaluation methods, previous to the FAO framework, focused on the edaphic component of land evaluation. Afterwards, an economic approach was added. For example, the soil potential ratings  consider the costs that result from corrective measures and continuing limitations. Nowadays, landevaluation methods must consider new uses (that is, environmental, recreational) and factors (such as, urban pressure) that require the evaluation of natural, economic, and social resources. These needs were contemplated during the development of the FAO framework and more recent land-evaluation systems such as the land-evaluation and site assessment (LESA)  . In 1994 a total of 209 local governments in the United States had applied this system  , which provides consistent and reliable results as long as the site assessment factors are carefully defined, and standard measurements are established BIB001 . Other post-FAO systems are the fertility capability classification BIB013 , which groups soils according to the problems they pose for agricultural management, and the agro-ecological zoning (AEZ)  , which follows the FAO framework. Currently, the increasing development of dynamic simulation models of agricultural systems   BIB014  responds to the need for more quantified and precise cropyield predictions, at the expense of requesting more information. Other recent research works are based on the use of fuzzy-set methodology in GIS for land-suitability assessment  BIB002 BIB007 by classifying the soil properties into continuous values through fuzzy-membership functions. Other techniques used for this purpose are the expert systems  BIB010 , and artificial neuronal networks  . BIB009 suggested a theoretical framework for classifying the land-evaluation systems; this framework can be considered a first step in the development of a general land-evaluation theory  . Despite this first classification, landevaluation models can be grouped in capability and suitability systems  , or in qualitative and quantitative evaluations (Dent and Young, 1981) , and are usually presented in a historical perspective  , as in table 1 (over). The main distinguishing characteristics of the different methods, which determine whether they are applicable or not to a particular planning situation, can be summarized as follows: (1) Purpose and land uses considered:`capability systems' evaluate a global land use, frequently a general agricultural land use, and`suitability systems' refer to specific uses. (2) Information required: the crop-simulation models require detailed data about the crop and the natural environment. The land capability classification, the parametric indices, and the fuzzy-based systems are also based on accurate information that concerns only the soil characteristics. In other methods, such as the USBR land suitability system or the soil potential ratings, the data needed are basically economic. In the most flexible systems, such as the FAO framework, AEZ or LESA, the amount, type, and accuracy of the information depend on each specific application. Despite the fact that land-use planning is``as much a social and political issue as it is a physical and economic one'' (Jacobs, 2000, page 177) , only the FAO framework and LESA consider socioeconomic factors. (3) Procedure: in a quantitative evaluation, results are expressed as quantified estimates, whereas, in a qualitative evaluation, qualifying adjectives are used for the variables considered. The pre-FAO land-evaluation methods, based on qualitative judgment, gave rise to more quantitative techniques in subsequent years. (4) Results: land suitability classification into discrete groups involves a considerable loss of information. The fuzzy approach, among others, overcomes this limitation by providing results in a continuous scale. These continuous suitability maps can serve as input information for land-use spatial allocation methods. 5 Land-use allocation Van Diepen et al (1991, page 191) described land-use planning as``the allocation of land to various categories of use according to criteria formulated during the land evaluation process.'' The land-use planning models that have been reviewed in this paper constitute decision support systems (DSSs). These DSSs are usually integrated, to a greater or lesser extent, into a GIS, and use an expert system or a mathematical model as a decision support tool. The link between GIS and the decisionmaking tool can be of three types  : (a) loose coupling, (b) tight coupling, or (c) full integration. BIB008 and BIB011 simplified this classification into two categories by unifying (b) and (c). A good example of a DSS formed by a GIS and a land-use planning system can be found in  .