LAND CONSOLIDATION IN G.LS. ENVIRONMENT

Abstract

Consolidation of lands is a process of aggrandizing different lands. In general, this situation is observed in villages, as some farmers may be having their lands not in one place but scattered at different places. In addition, some of them may not be convenient having access to the existing roads. Some of them are very far off from dug wells or tube wells and it may be too difficult to water their crops. Sometimes although they are having more area (aggregate of all of their land pieces), as their lands are lying scattered, farmers may not be able to grow those crops, which needs more area. Thus under these conditions, the villagers may not be having opportunity to utilize potentially the resources available in the village. It would have been better if these scattered lands are aggrandized. This is the central idea of consolidation of lands. The concept of consolidation of lands provides solution for the above said problems of villages. These kinds of problems exist in many villages and the government is looking forward to solve them with the idea of consolidation of lands. It is so difficult to satisfy every one through this process, but to the extent possible it is tried to achieve a best possible solution that is acceptable to everyone. It is due to this reason it could be called as a subjective process. Several solutions are prepared for several cases and the most suitable one would be implemented. Several criteria or conditions of consolidation would be formulated and solution is achieved for it. Generally these would be, all lands are set to move, some fixed lands do exist and all cannot be moved, etc. As the formulation of these criteria of consolidation of lands manually would require considerable amount of resources and time, computer solutions seems to provide a promising results. The solution achieved could be simulated for all practical purposes whether it is acceptable. If not, with new criteria another solution is formed again and tested for its implementation. This simulation would save considerable amount of resources and above all, this can be done so fast and more solutions can be tried and tested in no time. Thus, computer solution for consolidation of lands would provide a better solution. No set criteria exist in consolidation. Only broad outlines are provided such that bigger land should have lower shifting probability. Land with construction should not shift in consolidation. Each land should have access to road. These criteria are not sufficient to provide complete solution. Therefore, a responsible person takes decision on the basis of his experience, and on the basis of mutual consent between villagers. However, this solution cannot be unique one, will be subjective, and may also it is time consuming. For this reason, only consolidation of a single village may take more than a year sometimes. In the last few years, computer has become an integral part of our system. It provides fast creative solution without complaining of tiredness. Only problem may be in the definition of problem. Since no definite rules exist for land consolidation. Different options can be tried using different criteria and an acceptable solution could be developed. Software solution for the consolidation of lands could be developed more effectively using GIS technique. The polygon concept in GIS can be used to represent all the lands in consolidation with the relevant data (both positional and attribute) pertaining to these lands built in a database. These polygons (lands) and their data are manipulated using certain criteria and a solution is achieved. This could be displayed on a CRT monitor and previewed. The concepts, polygon-representation (data-encoding), database and computer display, which are the components of GIS form the foundations for the development of any software solution using GIS technique. Remote sensing interface would provide a better reliability of the data used in GIS. It gives multi-data concept, like multi-band, multi-date etc which provide an opportunity to consider the variations in the data (if any) and check its reliability before building a database in GIS. In the present context, remote sensing images are also studied. IRS-PAN and LISS images are studied and observations are drawn. Further, aerial photographs are also tested. The best of the remote sensing resolutions available today i.e. 5.8m of IRS-PAN are conducive in consolidation of lands in determining the weight of the lands, and delineation of linear features like village boundaries and individual land boundaries. Some problems had occurred during the delineation of some of the adjacent lands with same kind of crops grown. In such cases, it requires even better resolution than that is available today. In the present context, these kinds of problems are tackled with the use of existing maps. In future, if these resolutions are achieved, the consolidation of lands could much optimally be implemented. At the end, the use of remote sensing in consolidation of lands is suggested favourable. LANDCON software is developed with four built-in solutions, which would be common in general. They are consolidation in the order of digitization, in the reverse order, small area to large and viceversa. LANDCON is developed with Graphical User Interface (GUI), which makes it a user-friendly package. Without much knowledge of computers, one can easily understand the options and provisions accommodated. The software itself would guide the user whenever a trouble occurs. Further, if any other types of solutions are interested for consolidation, they can be incorporated in the source code of the program. As LANDCON is developed in Visual C++ using object oriented programming (OOPS) methods, it is always possible to extend this software by incorporating more applications of GIS using the same source code (for GIS functions) without developing them again. In future, it can be said that LANDCON would provide better solutions of consolidation of lands.