Use of GIS Technologies to Create a Local Geoinformation System for Irrigated Land Accounting.

The lack of up-to-date cartographic data leads to insufficient tracking of land turnover and information on its real state and use, thereby causing destruction and degradation of not only individual components of the agricultural landscape, but also of entire natural systems. The agricultural landscape is a complex ecological system, which, under harsh conditions of exploitation, loses its ability to self-repair and self-regulate for a very long time. Therefore, each of its components needs to be accounted for, monitored, and protected. Irrigated lands represent a special component in this system, the state of which determines agricultural production independent of the amount of precipitation. The purpose of the current work is to carry out remote monitoring of irrigated and rainfed lands using GIS technologies for their structuring and creating a local geoinformation system for accounting for irrigated areas. The data obtained using geoinformation technologies reveals a discrepancy in the area of the Novonadezhdinsk rural municipality of Gorodishchensk raion of Volgograd oblast of 200 ha, or 3.3%; the area of agricultural lands has increased by 157.8 ha or 3.8% (in comparison with the data of 2010). Using remote-sensing methods, 159 arable land boundaries with an area of 4134.6 ha are evaluated and their configuration, size (from 0.37 ha to 129.2 ha), average slope steepness (0.92°), and altitude difference over the entire study area (53 m), are determined. More than 18% of the territory has a slope steepness of more than 3°, which under irrigation can strengthen degradation processes. The field studies conducted within the boundaries of 19 land plots allow us to clarify the nature and mode of use of each plot (irrigated or rainfed) and determine the type of crops and permitted use, as well as the presence of shelterbelt forests as one of the components of the agricultural landscape. The lack of information on the quantity, distribution, and dynamics of irrigated lands is an urgent problem in other regions as well. The methods of such studies of agricultural lands are especially important for taking account of land resources, tracking their legal use, and evaluating the tax base of regions. The novelty of the research lies in the use of a local geoinformation system for taking account of irrigated lands and structuring of information about their spatial distribution and use, as well as about the formation of the mechanism of socioeconomic and ecological regulation of land resources on the example of a single region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]