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Prepare Sustainable Strategic development Plans for a selected Tea Estate in Mid-country region in Sri Lanka using GIS Landuse Land use is the use of land by humans usually with an emphasis on the functional role of the land in economic activities. Tea based land use types are very complicated as tea estates are associated with different agronomic practices. Prior to planting tea, soil rehabilitating grasses such as Tripsacum laxum or Cymbopogon confertiflorus are establishing in fields. The percentage of tea crop cover is a major indicator for crop yield. Therefore crop cover percentage considered for land use categorization. Major categories associated in tea estates can be classified as follows;
Topographic and soil properties are major factors which affect for vegetation condition. Topographic factors include slope, elevation and aspect. Elevation affects the temperature, slope affects the insolation and runoff of the habitat and aspect affects insolation. Westhall Estate fall in greater than 800m amsl and less than 1600m amsl elevation category. The angle at which a slope resides can affect soil properties and as a result of this affect crop condition. Slope affects the movement of water on the land surface and through its soils. Sites on crests and ridge tops and steep slopes shed water into the neighboring low-lying areas. According to the advisory circulars of Tea Research Institute of Sri Lanka slopes greater than 55% are not recommended for plant Tea in mid country tea growing region. This condition was considered for classified slope classes. Nine aspect classes were identifies according to the compass direction in which slope faces. Soil Soil survey was done by collaborating with Soils and Plant Nutrition division, Tea Research institute of Sri Lanka for determining the important characteristics of soil, classifying soils into units and establishing and plotting on soil maps. Crops and soil management practices are so sensitive to the differences in soil. Soil maps serve as the basis for different crop management and agronomic recommendations. The soil series is a group of soils having soil horizons similar in differentiating characteristics and arrangement in the soil profile, except for the texture of the soil surface and developed from a particular type of parent material. The soil series by itself is seldom used as a mapping unit in any survey. Soil series are differentiated mainly on the basis of significant variations in the morphological features of the soil profile (Soil survey manual, 1966). The soil series names are place names taken from the area where the soil is first defined such as Barcaple, Westhall and Hungranoya. The upper limit and the lower limit of a depth class, applied to any one soil, are fixed in definite figures. These limits need to vary somewhat among soils depending on the other soil characteristics (Soil survey manual, 1966). Rockiness refers to the relative proportion of bedrock exposures, either rock outcrops or patches of soil too thin over bedrock use, in soil area (Soil survey manual, 1966). Sustainable Strategic Development Planning criteria Major landuse planning criteria were developed to achieve following options;
 Fig 3: Structure Chart for SSDP criteria development Proposed strategic sustainable development plan and statistics of planning options for the Westhall estate shows in Table 2 and Fig. 4 respectively. Table 2: Statistics of proposed land use plan for Westhall estate
 Fig. 4. Proposed land use plan for Westhall Estate Discussion Up-to-date and reliable information is vital for managerial purposes and take efficient decisions. Geographical Information System (GIS) and Remote Sensing (RS) technology can be used as tools for update estate information. In addition developing land use planning system-using SSDP can be used for estates for maximizing their profits and optimizing lands. Acknowledgement Authors would like to appreciate greatly the support given by the Director and the staff of Upper Mahaweli Watershed management Project, Mahaweli Authority, Pogolla, Sri Lanka for utilization their instruments and resources. Financial Assistance grant by Council for Agricultural Research Policy, Sri Lanka (CARP) for conducting this study is highly appreciated. References
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