Using Compound Topographic Index to Delineate Soil Landscape Facets from Digital Elevation Models for Comprehensive Coastal Assessment

Soil landscape mapping is a regional planning tool that identifies soil and landscape constraints to development from natural resource management and engineering view points. Currently, this dataset is the only one available for identifying land capability in its broadest sense. More detailed soil landscape information at the hillslope facet level is necessary to identify specific urban and rural land capabilities for the orderly planning of infrastructure, buildings, roads, effluent management and other uses at detailed scales (e.g. 1:25,000 or larger). Derivative maps presenting capability information derived from soil landscape facets and associated data sets can be used to identify land with high versatility and to help anticipate, ameliorate and resolve land use conflicts.