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Land capability survey was devised by the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) for the demarcation of land capability regions of Australia. Subsequently, the land capability sur vey was widely applied in the European and Anglo-American countries and in some of the Third World countries.
Land capability survey helps in ascertaining the usefulness of land, its utility for agriculture, forest, industry, tourism, and other land use purposes.
For the delineation of land capability regions, only physical parameters are taken into consideration. The demarcation of these regions in fact is on the basis of texture, structure of soil, terrain, slope, run-off, temperature, and precipitation. Thus, in the land capability survey, there is a heavy reliance on the results of soil survey and pedological conditions.
In general each soil group has its own physical and chemical properties. These properties determine the land capability and land suitability. For example, the regur soil is good for the cultivation of cotton, sugarcane, and citrus fruits, while the alluvial soil is utilised for wheat, rice, maize, sugarcane, pulses, and oilseeds.
In India, the basic objective of the Soil Survey was to achieve the land capability classification. The All India Soil and Land Use Survey Organisation attempted the land capability survey in 1960 which identified eight land use capability classes given below.