LU_FLAG
Land Use Flag

Definition

Flag indicating the types of land uses identified in the NAME and LAYER tables.

The NAME and LAYER tables can describe soil profiles in native condition, profiles after disturbance due to agricultural activities, or both. The LU_FLAG field can be used to control the linkage between the CMP and the NAME and LAYER tables.
 

Contents

CODE	DESCRIPTION
A	Agricultural soil profile ONLY
N	Native soil profile ONLY
X	BOTH   Agricultural and Native conditions are found in the Soil Name and Soil Layer Tables

 

Usage

Linkage from the CMP to the NAME and the LAYER tables is made via the SOILTYPE field in these three tables.  Land use (LU) is the final character of the 9 character SOILTYPE field.  It determines whether the linkage is made to the Agricultural soil profile or the Native soil profile.  Initially, LU is set to "A" where an Agricultural soil profile is described, and "N" where only a Native soil profile is described in the NAME and the LAYER tables.  The net effect of this is that analyses using the data in the NAME and the LAYER tables will have an agricultural "bias".

In order to alter this agricultural bias, the following procedure is recommended.

1. create a join between the CMP table and the NAME table.
2. Using knowledge from another source to select polygons where native land use is expected
3. Of these polygons, reselect the subset where the LU_FLAG field from the NAME table is "X"
4. For these records, change the final character of the SOILTYPE field to "N"
5. Drop the join to the NAME table
6. Rejoin the CMP table to the NAME and LAYER tables as required.

Source: Peter Schut
Contact: Head, CanSIS