Evaluation systems of agricultural land suitability are being used in different regions of Brazil, by distinct teams and with multiple applications. The objective of this study was to evaluate, for soils in the State of Acre, how different experts evaluate the relative importance of indicators of a land suitability system, and how they interpret properties that can define land suitability classes. Ten soil profiles analyzed for the IX Brazilian Soil Classification and Correlation Workshop were used. These soil profiles are […]

Rural settlements in Brazil were created in order to confront pressures and are characterized by the lack of planning prior to the diagnosis and implementation of the natural resources related to land suitability evaluation, distribution of classes such as topography, rivers system, vegetation, and support mechanisms. The aim of this study was to evaluate the agricultural capacity of the lands which were allotted to the settlement of rural families by the National Institute of Colonization and Land Reform (INCRA), applying […]

Land evaluation is a process that estimates the land use potential based on its properties. A large variety of analytic models can be used in this process. In Brazil, the two most widely used land evaluation systems are the “Sistema de Classificação da Capacidade de Uso da Terra” and “Sistema FAO/Brasileiro de Aptidão Agrícola das Terras”. Although different in several aspects, both require the crossing of countless environmental variables. ALES (Automated Land Evaluation System) is a computer program that allows […]

The Integrated Land Use Planning course of the Agronomy School of the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul State, Porto Alegre, Brazil, associates Soil Science with other courses taught in Agronomy, establishing consistent and meaningful crosslinks. The course uses integrated land use planning to feed the compiled agronomical knowledge into a project of sustainable land use for one or more farms. The following sequence of procedures is used for this purpose: regional characterization, survey of existing natural resources, ascertainment […]

The suitability for reforestation of parts of the North Slope of the Tijuca neighborhood not covered by buildings, the Mangue and Cunha watersheds, was studied. The plan was to subsidize the “Mutirão” Reforestation Program of the Environmental Department of Rio de Janeiro Municipality. Nutrient deficiency, water deficiency, erosion susceptibility and management impediments were considered in the evaluation of land suitability. The limitation degrees were evaluated for the components of soil survey units, considering soil and landscape information from the available […]

The objective of this work was to propose a methodology for land evaluation based on planting information, soil data extracted from a soil survey in a scale 1:50,000, and estimate of climatic risk, using a geographic information system (GIS). The reference area was the Jardim watershed, in the Federal District (Brazil). A water balance model was used to simulate the climatic risk for the corn crop (Zea mays L.), at nine different planting dates. Quantitative values for corn productivity parameters […]

Attributes of soil, climate and crop management were characterized in ten growing coffee plantations in the western region of São Paulo State. The purpose of this work was to identify the main limiting productivity factors and develop a simple multivariate model to explain observed yield in the period between 1984 and 1989. Over two thousand traits were initially analyzed by simple correlation to the final yield, and the significant ones, with at least 5% level according to the Student test […]