Soil Development and Land Use Pattern associated with Geomorphic Features in Narathiwat Province, Southern Thailand

In the humid tropics, determining the limits of ecological functions for each land use might be the much important to develop sustainable agricultural land use system, since tropicai ecosystems are originally fragiie. In the most case, soils are major limiting factor. To achieve the sound land use planning, it is the first step to recognize the ecological characteristics based on physical properties. The objective of this study is to classify the landscape ecological units, at the Bacho swamp and its surroundings, in the Narathiwat Province, Southern Thailand. The transectional approach from mountain areal to coastal area was taken to know the variety and the relationship of environmental attributes, in particular, geology, geomorphology, pedology, and land cover/use. In addition, species composition and tree bulk of valuable trees in home gardens were compared between a village located on foot slope and one on sand dune. The transection was classified by combining geomorphic and soil types into seven land units, namely, 1) Convex Middle Slopes - Slope Complex, 2) Pediment - Udults, 3) Low Terrace - Aquults, 4) Upiand - Udults, 5) Lowland Swamp - Fibrists, 6) Sand Dune - Humods, and 7) Beach Ridges - Psamments, and the spatial relationship between each type were discussed