Land capability, Irrigation Potential and Crop Suitability Analysis Using GIS and Remote Sensing in Upper Kesem (Awash Basin)

No Thumbnail Available

Date

2007-07

Journal Title

Journal ISSN

Volume Title

Publisher

Addis Ababa Universty

Abstract

Land Capability, Irrigation potential and Land suitability analysis is a prerequisite for sustainable agricultural production. Land Capability (Classification) evaluates parameters like slope, soil depth, past erosion, waterlogging, infiltration, soil texture and stoniness of the study area. GIS and remote sensing are a tool to evaluate the above parameters and leads to a conclusion that 60 % of the study area well matched to annual crop production. Multicriteria decision-making techniques like ranking, rating etc. are employed for the analysis that includes pairwise combination and weighted linear combination. The parameters used for suitability analysis for surface irrigation are slope, soil drainage, soil depth, texture, waterlogging, land use and soil type. After evaluating the physical land capability for surface irrigation, irrigation suitability map was developed. This map was classified in to five suitability classes based on FAO guideline. The result shows that 93.87 sq km (18%) very suitable, 85.63 sq km (17 %) suitable, 176.93(34 %) marginally suitable, 126.13sq km (25 %) marginally not suitable and 33.20 sq km (6 %) permanently not suitable. Land suitability analysis for specific crops especially Teff and Wheat was also done using Temperature and Rain fall amount of the study area in addition to the factors mentioned above that are used for surface irrigation evaluation. Suitability maps for both Teff and Wheat were also developed. The suitability map for each crop was classified in to five suitability classes. Regarding Teff 84.32 sq km (16 %) very suitable, 86.50(17%) suitable, 168.95 sq km (33%) marginally suitable, 107.34 sq km (21 %) marginally not suitable and 68.65 sq km (13 %) permanently not suitable for the study area. Suitability classes for Wheat were 73.50 sq km (14%) very suitable, 96.71 sq km (19 %) suitable, 118.93 sq km (23%) marginally suitable, 106.60 sq km (21%) marginally not suitable and 120.02 (23%) permanently not suitable. Keywords: Land Capability; MCDM; Land suitability; surface irrigation; annual crop

Description

Keywords

Land Capability, MCDM, Land suitability, surface irrigation, Annual crop

Citation

Collections