Gis In Monitoring Agricultural Land Use Changes And Well Assessment

ABSTRACT Thousands (estimated at 15,000) of flowing artesian wells (FAWs) place considerable impact on the agricultural land and water resources in Florida. Great difficulty has been experienced in attempting to find the FAW locations. The feasibility of using a geographic information system (GIS) for studying agricultural land use changes and assessing these FAWs was investigated in this study. The results showed that the GIS is a very useful tool for monitoring agricultural land use changes and assessing the FAWs. The agricultural land (based on 1944, 1958, and 1987 data) occupied 35% of the 65 500 ha (253 mile^) study area while the area consistently used for agriculture represented only 5.9%. Of the 892 FAWs in the study area, 683 were located in the agricultural land. The agricultural land use information can provide an important clue for locating those FAWs. The FAWs data can be integrated with well-flow rate to estimate the irrigation-water requirement.