Study of the soil cover of the Chingirlau rural district of the West Kazakhstan region of the Republic of Kazakhstan based on the use of GIS technologies
Rational use and protection of soils in market conditions requires adequate application of new scientific and methodological approaches. One of such systems-analytical methods of organizing a soil cadastre is the combination of traditional ground-based methods with geographic information systems (GIS) technologies based on the widespread use of aerospace images of high resolutions. The totality of information necessary for mapping soil cover structures and their quantitative assessment is described in GIS databases. Data integration is implemented through a spatial and attributive component in the form of: the results of topographic and thematic maps. At the same time, the creation of attributive GIS databases involves the digitization of thematic maps linked in a single cartographic projection (which was a topographic map at a scale of 1:50,000). As results of the research, digital soil maps for the Chingirlau district of the West Kazakhstan region were created on the basis of GIS technologies, using the ArcGIS software products. It was established that within the limits of the Chingirlau district of the West Kazakhstan region, dark chestnut soils in combination with various soil combinations predominate in the structure of the soil cover. They are formed on loess-like loams in the conditions of the dry steppe zone with a non-leaching type of water regime under fescue-grass, forb-grass-wormwood, meadowsweet-grass with wormwood plant communities. To improve the quality of generalized maps (district, regional, etc.), it is necessary to create objective automated methods for generalizing maps in a digital environment. A method for compiling a digital soil map using the ArcGIS software product, accessible to a wide range of GIS users, has been developed. To compile soil maps, it is possible to use any scanned cartographic bases, photoplans, and other raster materials. Based on the developed methodology, a large-scale soil map of the Chingirlau district of the West Kazakhstan region was created on the basis of soil maps of rural districts made using GIS technologies.