| dc.description.abstract | Natural Resource inventory of remote areas of So
malia was one of the main goals of the FAO-
SWALIM Project. Two study areas were chosen acco
rding to the population density distribution
and to the presence of agriculture land use: one in
the northwest and one in the southern part of
the Country. The two areas have both difficult logistic and accessibility aspects due to the
unresolved conflict environment. An integrat
ed landform mapping approach was set up and
tested in the two areas. It led to the creation of a new semi-detailed baseline (scales from
1:100.000 to 1:50.000) on landform among the other
results (land cover, land use, soils types,
and soil erosion). The landform mapping pro
cess was conducted exploiting most of the
characteristics of the GIS environment (overlayi
ng, transparency, spatial analysis, database
management, etc), integrating many different da
ta layers: topographic maps, geological maps,
DEMs and their derived products, and multi-re
solution, multispectral and multitemporal
satellite imagery. A hierarchical landform legend was set up following the GeoPedologic
approach (Zinck, 1988) adapting it to the use
of Satellite imagery, geomorphometric analysis
and to the Somali environment, and consideri
ng also other landform mapping systems like the
FAO-SOTER approach (FAO, 1995) among the ot
hers. A semi-automated landform legend
system was developed under the GIS environment, taking advantage of the ESRI Geodatabase
domains characteristics, in order to help the im
age interpreters to perfo
rm their work. The two
areas differing greatly in terms of climate, ge
ology, morphology, vege
tation, land cover and
land use, proved to be good test sites for this a
pproach. From a morphological point of view the
northern area (western part of the former So
maliland) is characterized by a quite dissected
topography, with elevation ranging from 0 to 1850 m a.s.l. The following main landscapes have
been identified: coastal area, piedmonts, peneplains, hillands, mountainous areas, plateaus, and
valleys. Three main climatic zones (pertaining
to the Arid and Semiarid climates) follow the
landscape subdivision. The southern area, corre
sponding to the lower part of the Jubba and
Shabelle river basins, is characterized by a topography with elevation ranging from 0 to 750 m
a.s.l.. The main Landscapes here found are alluvi
al plains, domed hilland, piedmont and valleys.
This area is characterized by a higher value of ra
infall than the northern one, still falling into the
Semi-Arid climate. As a result two new landform maps and a semi-automated hierarchical
landform legend under GIS environment were prep
ared. An enhancement of the GeoPedologic
approach is also suggested. The landform maps
were adopted as one of the fundamental layers
for the Digital Soil Mapping, for the land suitability and for the soil erosion exercise. Further
application of this methodology in different
geological and morphoclimatic context and with
different datasets is already ongoing by the aut
hors. We acknowledge very much all the FAO-
SWALIM staff and Dr. Zoltan Balint in par
ticular, for the support during this research | en |
