An Investigation of Sloping Cultivated Land on the Loess Plateau with "3S" Technology

The hill and ravine area on the Loess Plateau is typical region of serious soil erosion, excess reclamation, and deteriorated eco-environment in middle reaches of Yellow River. The main purpose of eco-environment development project is to recover vegetation, and transfer high sloping cultivated land to forest or meadow. The local government in the concerned region poses that sloping cultivated land higher than 15 degree should be transfered. How many are there qualified land parcels and how about their distribution? These are the basic problems for conducting the eco-environment development project. In this paper, using TM image and digital relief map, the landuse classification and slope calculation are made for Baota town in Yanan city, with the software of ARC/INFO and ERDAS IMAGINE. A sloping cultivated land is also mapped, based on composite analysis of landuse map and slope map.