A THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK FOR LAND EVALUATION

Land evaluation is the process of predicting the use potential of land on the basis of its attributes. A variety of analytical models can be used in these predictions, ranging from qualitative to quantitative, functional to mechanistic, and specific to general, This paper classif ies land evaluation models by how they take time and space into accoun t, and whether they use land qualities as an intermediate between land characteristics and land suitability, Temporally, models can be of a static resource base and static land suitability, a dynamic resource b ase but static land suitability, or both a dynamic resource base and d ynamic land suitability. Spatially, land evaluation models can be of a single area with no interaction between areas, with static inter-area effects, or dynamic inter-area effects. In the most complex case, lan d suitabilities for several land uses are interdependent.