Application of GIS Technologies in Sustainable Land Management at Local Level

Food production is a primary role of land. The importance of soil, as one of land’s essential components in socio-economic planning should be seen through the fact that soil is a limited and hardly renewable natural resource or a non-renewable resource for a human lifetime. The usage of land can be multifunctional and its role in natural ecosystems and life on Earth is not an easy one to understand. It is a dynamic system that performs numerous functions which are essentially divided into environmental and technical ones. In addition, land provides services for ecosystems and human activities. Bosnia and Herzegovina (B&H) has scarce amounts of good quality agricultural land. The top three soil bonity categories account for only 14.2%. Land use and development are directly influenced by socio-economic trends and sectoral policies. In addition to this and in more general terms the land is also influenced by the attitude that the society holds towards it, as one of the key resources. Sustainable land management has a very important agro-ecological and socio-economic dimension. This paper aims to present the importance, characteristics as well as the use of the different approaches in evaluating and sustainable management of land at the local level. Application and importance of GIS as a tool will be presented through several research studies, namely: soil data of Popovo polje, bonity data of Mostar City, land cover and land use changes of Tuzla City, and application of agroecological zoning of Srebrenik municipality.