Growing population pressure and human activities increases the demand on the limited land resources, both for agricultural and other land uses. To meet this unprecedented demand of land for various pursuits, it is imperative to develop land use plans which can counteract the detrimental effects on environment and at the same time improve productivity of land. The present paper on land resource inventory and soil mapping for fertility status of Humnabad sub-watershed of Humnabad taluk, Bidar district, Karnataka primarily deals with land resource inventory, soil mapping, their problems and potentials. Cadastral map, Google earth images, toposheets and satellite imagery were used as base maps. Detailed survey was carried out through the study area (1:7920). Surface soil samples were collected at regular grid interval of 360 cm. The collected samples were analyzed in lab for determining their fertility status. Thematic maps were generated using aforementioned satellite data coupled with ground truth. Based on all these fertility status of the sub-watershed was determined. The available nitrogen status of the watershed ranged from low to medium. The available phosphorus and potassium ranged from low to medium. The available sulphur status ranged from low to high but most of the area was low to medium. All the micronutrients were sufficient in lateritic soil series while, in basaltic soil series iron and zinc were low. | Land resource inventory and soil mapping for fertility status of Humnabad sub-watershed
