IDENTIFICATION OF LAND DEGRADATION AREAS BY QUERYING THE GEOREFERENCED NATIONAL DATABASES IN ORDER TO DELINEATE THE POTENTIAL LAND RECLAMATION PERIMETERS AT LOCAL LEVEL

The aim of this paper is to identify land degradation areas at administrative local level using GIS-based methods and geo-referenced databases including soil, geology, terrain, land use, and land cover data. The Local Administrative Unit of Scorţoasa, Buzău County, was selected as study case, covering an area of about 9595 ha of hill landscape. With data which included soil maps, land use maps and geology maps at medium scales (1:200 000) land degradation map was obtained for cropland and grazing land based on some attributes such as: water erosion, wind erosion, landslides, salinization, water logging. The combined land degradation map, joining the different data, presents a medium resolution, given the different initial scales of the used maps. The approach adopted in this paper consisting in combining different data sets, requires field validation, but can provide primary reliable information for delineation of potential land reclamation areas