Land evaluation studies in the mid-wear lowlands of county Durham

Abstract

This thesis is a statement of research into the use of various aspects of the science of land evaluation in a selected area of Eastern Durham, Great Britain. It has a dual purpose of both investigating the area under question and of developing new means of analysis in the light of present concepts and past research. Two broad themes run through the study; that of consideration of methods of assessing the physical capability of land for various uses, and that of the development of natural resource information inventories for use where no specific land use is initially contemplated. Two areas for research, suggested by deficiencies in the existing literature, are followed. The first is the use of point sample surveys to enable a rapid evaluation of an areas characteristics and land use capability at a "strategic" level of survey. The second is the development of quantitative information inventory procedures which reduce the elements of subjectivity that are inherent in composite unit analysis. The three major underlying practical conceptual approaches to land evaluation of thematic, composite and parametric analysis are taken as the methodological basis for the research and only physical evaluations are considered. Soil receives particular emphasis throughout. The work is divided into five parts. Part 1 discusses the concept of land evaluation, the contribution of previous workers and the role of natural resource attributes and parameters. Part 2 defines the study area, the survey methods, and a thematic description of the area's characteristics relevant to the study. Part 3 investigates parametric land capability classifications for selected land uses and Part 4, after a discussion of quantitative information analysis, outlines a series of quantitative methods for the development of site information inventories. Part 5 concludes the study.