Production of digital maps from conventional maps and remote sensing data using geographical information system (GIS)

Land and Water Research Center (L WRC) is the responsible center for providing soil information on various maps of different scales as well on water management information. Soil and other related maps have been prepared manually on papers (hardcopy) for most of agricultural development schemes for about half a century. The cartographic unit of the L WRC is faced with great problems of storing the great number of these conventional maps. The maps are exposed to be teared, lost, to faint and become unreadable. The reproduction of these maps cost a lot of money and time. The main objective of this study IS to use the GIS to convert the conventional maps into digital format. The digitization of maps provides the ability to modify and update and sustainable storage of the maps beside the ability to display them that can be display in a computer monitor with different scales. The study was mainly based on materials, composed mainly of conve ntional maps from four locations Gunied sugar scheme, Wad Haboba group in the Gezira Scheme, Geteina and Abu Guta area and the White Nile Sugar Project. The first step was conversion of coordinates (degree system) to VIM system then the data was georeferenced using ARC GIS9 software. The conventional maps were scanned and digitized to convert them from raster to vector. In the vector model the map features were stored in a computer as a set of digits using ERDAS software. In the White Nile Sugar Project, the data of the profiles and augers (attributes) were converted from excel format to ARC VIEW format. The conversion of conventional and mapped data (analog) into digital form by scanning and digitization is the suitable procedure for using the data in GIS. The GIS refers to computer system which is capable of storing, processing, integrating and presentation of variety of data in one system, where they are referenced by their geographical locations. It can be concluded t h at the GIS technology has dramatically changed the rate of time at which the geographical information can be produced, updated and disseminated. Map updating that required months of manual efforts are now done in hours. Today a GIS can make the special purpose of presentation of data quick and inexpensive