GIS-GPS Based Map of Soil Index Properties for Mumbai

Soil is a natural material having varied properties which changes both along the depth and width of the stratum. To know the engineering behavior (e.g. bearing capacity) and nature of the soil, site investigation is recommended. However, for a highly populated city like Mumbai in India, many times it is bit difficult to carry out such site investigation to obtain the exact soil profile at all locations. In this paper, Geographic Information System (GIS) and Global Positioning System (GPS) are used to obtain the soil index property maps for Mumbai city, which is the financial capital of India. These maps will be extremely useful for obtaining a gross overall view of soil index properties of various locations of Mumbai. About 450 numbers of soil testing reports were collected from several geotechnical laboratories and professionals to create a huge soil database of Mumbai city. The integration of GIS, GPS and database of properties of soil such as specific gravity, moisture content, ground water level, liquid limit etc. will be very helpful to the soil investigators, geotechnical engineers and contractors working in Mumbai region for understanding the soil strata to decide the location for a future structure based on geotechnical engineering design.