LACONEX - A RULE-BASED IMPLEMENTATION TO ADVISE ON PLOT-LEVEL LAND CONSERVATION IN VILATHIKULAM, SOUTHEASTERN INDIA

Knowledge about land conservation exists along a spatial continuum, re presented at the broadest level (with least depth) by international-le vel experts who have international-level expertise, and at the narrowe st level (with most depth) by the individual farmer with the most site -specific knowledge at the plot level. This continuum covers many diff erent aspects of knowledge about land degradation and its amelioration , including technical and cultural knowledge. This paper reports an ef fort (one in a series of steps) to gather, formalize, codify, and oper ationalize knowledge about land conservation from two different levels of the continuum. Land conservation knowledge was elicited from farme rs and extension agents in Vilathikulam taluk (an area of contiguous v illages) in Tamil Nadu, southeastern India, using semi-structured inte rviews. The knowledge thus gained was combined with knowledge from the literature on soils and land conservation for the area. This informat ion was organized into factual knowledge and process knowledge, and im plemented in the form of general recommendations, constraints, and spe cific recommendations. The process of arriving at these categories was organized into several steps using a spatial anchor and soil type as keys. These were operationalized in a rule-based computer program (LAn d CONservation EXpert-LACONEX), which offers land conservation advice at the plot level for Vilathikulam taluk, using an expert system devel opment environment.