Land and Land Appraisal

378 Pages·1976·14.55 MB·English

by  Robert Orr Whyte (auth.)

LAND AND LAND APPRAISAL
LAND AND LAND APPRAISAL
Robert Orr Whyte
1976
Dr. W. JUNK b.v. - PUBLISHERS - THE HAGUE
ISBN-13: 978-90-6193-546-9 e-ISBN-13: 978-94-010-1577-6
DOl: 10.1007/ 978-94-010-1577-6
© Dr. W. Junk B. V., Publishers, The Hague 1976
Cover design Max Velthuijs
CONTENTS
Page
Preface xi
Concepts and definitions of land and landscape ..... 1
2 The rural ecosystem as a biological entity and an
economic resource . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
3 Evaluation of physical and biological components 66
4 Evaluation of economic constituents 177
5 The use of land in rural ecosystems. 230
6 Assessment of land capability'. . . . 261
7 Some surveys, completed or planned 321
8 Education in appraisal of land resources 332
Indexes .. ............... 343
Subjects 343
Geographical names 351
Authors and contributors 357
Key to abbreviations 369
CONTENTS OF CHAPTERS
Page
1 Concepts and Definitions of Land and Landscape 1
1.l Expert Consultation on Land Evaluation for Rural Purposes,
Wageningen,1972 1
1.2 CSIRO Division of Land Use Research 3
1.3 International Institute for Aerial Survey and Earth
Sciences, Netherlands 4
1.4 Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, Soil
Resources, Development and Conservation Service 5
1.5 Land Resources Division, Overseas Development Administration,
United Kingdom 6
1.6 The approach of the biogeographer 6
1.7 The approach of the geographer 9
1.7.1 Contribution of geographers to the study of land 10
Bibliography 13
2 The Rural Ecosystem as a Biological Entity and an
Economic Resource 16
2.l Concepts and definitions 16
2.2 Diversity, stability and mathematical models 21
2.3 Estimation of productivity of ecosystems 26
2.4 Ecosystems, soil and water 29
2.5 Weather, climate and the ecosystem 31
2.6 Ecosystems in the equatorial and tropical zones 35
2.7 Man as component of tropical rural ecosystems 43
Bib liogra phy 60
3 Evaluation of Physical and Biological Components 66
3.l Geology, geomorphology 67
3.2 Topography 73
3.3 Soils 76
3.3.1 Soil surveys or land surveys 76
3.3.2 Soil survey and classification: humid tropical Asia, India, Sarawak.
People's Republic of China 80
3.4 Climate 88
3.4.l Arid zone, humid tropics and the monsoons 88
3.4.2 The region and its constituent parts 94
3.4.3 Methods and objectives in agroclimatology 99
3.4.4 Bioclimatology 103
3.4.5 Assessment of climate in integrated surveys 105
3.4.6 Assessment of environmental potential for agriculture 106
3.4.7 Dry seasons/droughts/floods/variability /probability 113
3.4.8 Analogous/homologous climates 123
3.4.9 An agroclimatology project for southeast Asia 126
3.5 Water sources, resources and irrigation potential 127
3.6 Vegetation 138
3.6.l Vegetation as indicator of environment and as resource 140
3.6.2 Floras 143
3.6.3 Forests 145
3.6.4 The grass covers 154
3.7 Faunas 157
Bibliography 160
4 Evaluation of Economic Constituents 177
4.l Crops 177
4.1.l Origin and conservation of genetic resources 177
4.1.2 Assessment of comparative protein quantity and quality 178
4.l.3 Techniques for field experiments 182
4.1.4 Assessment of drought injury and tolerance 184
4.1.5 Assessment of crop losses from pest and diseases 186
4.2 Domestic livestock 196
4.2.1 The mathematics of livestock planning 199
4.2.2 Origin and conservation of genetic resources 205
4.2.3 Assessment of climatic factors in relation to animal production 209
4.2.4 Assessment of incidence of animal diseases 211
4.3 The human constituents 212
Bibliography 222
5 The Use of Land in Rural Ecosystems 230
5.1 Distinction between types of land use 230
5.2 Intensive land-use patterns 232
5.3 Surveys according to type of land use and economy 238
5.3.1 Shifting cultivation 238
5.3.2 Subsistence economies 242
5.3.3 Arid and semi-arid lands 246
5.3.4 Dryland agriculture 247
5.3.5 The special characters of deltaic land use 249
5.3.6 Irrigated agriculture 250
Bibliography 258
6 Assessment of Land Capability 261
6.1 Assessment of potential as basis for planning and investment 261
6.2 The integrated approach: 263
6.2.1 UNESCO and lTC, Enschede 263
6.2.2 Australia, CSIRO 265
6.2.3 Great Britain: Land Resources Division, ODA, University
of Sheffield, University of Reading 266
6.2.4 Malaysia (West Malaysia and State of Sabah) 271
6.2.5 Philippines 279
6.3 Categories and qualities of land 281
6.3.1 Site, land unit and land system 281
6.3.2 Definition and survey of land suitability/capability 288
6.3.3 Land quality 295
6.4 The application of aerial photography and space technology 296
6.4.1 Aerial photography and interpretation 296
6.4.2 Space technology and observations 300
6.5 Cartography and presentation of results 303
6.6 Land inventory and data bank 306
Bibliography 316
7 Some surveys, completed or planned 321
8 Education in appraisal of land resources 332
Indexes
343
Subjects 343
Geographical names 351
Authors and contributors 357
Key to abbreviations 369
PREFACE
This book is designed to present those principles and techniques for land
appraisal which are applicable to all developing countries. Examples of specific
situations in which these techniques have been or might be adopted are taken
primarily from monsoonal and equatorial Asia. It is in this region that the
land/food/population problem is most acute. It is also the writer's region of
specialization; over the past ten years out of a total of some twenty-five years
working in or closely concerned with Asia, an attempt has been made to
examine the major problems ofland potential in relation to rural economy and
nutrition in the whole region, and in particular to show to what extent its
different parts resemble or differ from each other.
The geographical scope comprises mainland southern, southeast and east
Asia, from Pakistan to the People's Republic of China and Korea, with the
insular monsoonal and equatorial lands of Sri Lanka, Indonesia, East Malaysia,
Philippines, Taiwan and Japan (part).
International and bilateral agencies and specialists outside Asia repeatedly
insist that Asia must learn to feed itself from the produce of its own land, or
from imported foods paid for by the exports of primary and secondary
commodities and of manufactured products to the developed world.
In assessing the present situation and the actual and potential increases in
agricultural production, international agencies base their calculations on the
deceptive assumption that the present standards of nutrition may be taken as
a base point. However, from rural dietary surveys and other information, it
can be seen that apart from a few more fortunate areas, the greater proportion
of the people in the rural food-producing areas of monsoonal and equatorial
Asia subsists on a diet which provides only some 50 per cent of minimal
nutritional requirements. These people represent 85 per cent of the total
population of Asia, or about half the population of the world, increasing at
the rate of four million a month.
Thus, in more realistic terms of human population and nutrition, the actual
demand is for a doubling of Asian production now, to bring standards of
nutrition for the rural food-producers to morally and biologically acceptable
levels, and for a second doubling of production to allow for increase of
population by the end of the century, even assuming early and efficient intro
duction of methods of popUlation control.
It is impossible to state whether these colossal targets can or cannot be
achieved. So little is known of the extent and real capabilities of the land types
of Asia; of the small areas of virgin land still awaiting survey to guide optimal
use and conservation, of the vast areas of secondary vegetation producing
nothing, conserving nothing, of the large areas under traditional (perhaps
obsolete) dryland or wetland agriculture, of the grazing resources of semi-arid
areas, and of all the lands that have become derelict through unplanned
cropping and use of water, or following long sequences of excessive shifting
cultivation.
No matter how carefully and accurately the land surveyors assess the true
biological potentialities of the land - The Economist (22 March, 1975)
claims that the world's agricultural resources, used efficiently, could feed a
global population fifteen times greater than the present four billion - there is
little evidence that the rural Asian, whatever his supposed ideological
persuasion, is willing or able to make the greater efforts expected of him in the
well-made plans of national and international agencies. Even when he does
respond, he becomes exposed to the most efficient methods adopted for the
extraction of foods produced in the rural areas for the benefit of urban
communities and export. His poverty and low level of education render him
unable to resist this lure, while farmers in a totalitarian state are subject to the
additional burden of meeting obligatory levies. Thus the standards of nutrition
of the rural family fall lower than before, particularly in respect of those types
of animal protein that were formerly consumed in the village. Consideration is
given in sections 2.7 and 4.3 to the role of rural man as a component of
biological ecosystems and to his evolution to the status of a manager of
econonik ecosystems.
The World Bank (Robert S. McNamara, quoted in Ceres 37,1974) states
that the goal should be to increase the production of small farms, so that by
1985 their output will be growing at a rate of 5 per cent per year, thereby
doubling their annual output between 1985 and the end of the century. 'But
a 5 per cent rate of growth has never been achieved among smallholders in
any extensive areas of the developing world.'
An attempt is being made to achieve self-sufficiency in rice in the
Philippines, but the International Rice Research Institute has stated that the
desirable percentage increases will not be obtained from their new cultivars
until there is greater availability of water for irrigation at all seasons, and until
these water resources are better managed in the fields. Throughout this book,
great stress is laid upon the integrated approach, both in land appraisal itself,
and in the application of the recommendations made by the assessors of land
potential.
Through the fog and confusion created by constant changes in economic
policies and political directives at the national level, the farmer has to make
his personal decision regarding the optimal combination of inputs which he
can afford and risk for his particular conditions; pending a major effort in
extension, the farmer will continue to rely on his own judgement of the
variables. Farmers are often said to be conservative and suspicious, 'but it is
likely that their judgements are no worse than those of the average banker or
stockbroker' (Philip Bowring in Far Eastern Economic Review, 28 March,
1975). And in any case, why should the specialist assume that he will be
satisfied with the relatively meagre returns from a rice crop, when other crops
such as sugarcane, plantation crops, industrial cash crops and even fodder
crops when fed through productive bovines may be more profitable in cash
return per hectare. Those who support land reform as a social and political
goal may consider that it is undesirable to transfer land to various types of
plantation crop if this results in the land's moving from tenant farmers to
large holdings. The opposing school can refer to more efficient production on
communes in the People's Republic of China or on commercial plantations
elsewhere in Asia (see 4.3), to the greater national economic benefit.
The role of land appraisal in the overall dynamics of development is to
indicate the technical steps which have to be taken to move the level of
~production from an existing plateau to the next above, and on upwards to
optimal production in that specific environment. These steps from one plateau
to another become progressively more difficult and more costly to achieve.
The techniques to be applied for increased and more efficient production are
well known, but what is not known is whether the rural cultivator, in his poor
and undernourished condition, can be induced to see any advantage to himself
from all the extra expense, risk and effort.
Thus it is all well and good to develop and to apply techniques for land
appraisal; they will be of little value without a parallel and sympathetic appraisal
of the rural Asian, in studies planned from a rural, not an urban base, on
rural sociology, rural economics and rural psychology in relation to acceptance
of change, first, for the benefit of the cultivator's own family, second, for
his neighbours in the same rural ecosystem, and third, for urban communities
and the nation.
Kota Baru, Kelantan, Malaysia
April,1975.