Gis and Remote Sensing Based Land Suitability Analysis for Agricultural Crops in Mojo Watershed, Upper Awash Subbasin, Ethiopia
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Date
2010-06
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Addis Ababa Universty
Abstract
Land suitability analysis is the evaluation and grouping of specific areas of land in terms
of their suitability for a defined use. Land suitability potential evaluation for agricultural
crops is an important step for sustainable land use planning. Improper land use results
in land degradation and decline in agricultural productivity. Hence, in order to get the
optimum benefit out of the land, proper utilization of its resources is inevitable. GIS and
remote sensing offer a convenient and powerful platform to integrate spatially complex
and different land attributes for performing land suitability analysis and allocations.
This study intended to analyze and map suitable land areas for agricultural crops in
Mojo Watershed using GIS and remote sensing techniques. The study used weighted
overlay technique of MCE in a GIS platform to arrive at the final land suitability for
agricultural crops. In addition a vector overlay (union) was used for suitable land
allocation for the evaluated crops. The factors that were considered for evaluation of the
land suitability analysis for agricultural crops are soil (depth, drainage, texture, organic
matter, and pH), rainfall, temperature, slope and land use/land cover. The result
showed that 27.3%, 35.4%, and 15.7% of the study area are classified as highly suitable
for teff, wheat, and chickpea production, respectively. In addition, 65.2%, 60.9%, 77.9%
and 80.2% were found to be moderately suitable while 4.1%, 0.6%, 3.3% and 16.5% is
marginally suitable land for teff, wheat, chickpea and lentil, respectively. The result
indicated that, there is no land that is classified as currently not suitable for wheat.
However 0.3%, 0.03% and 0.04% of the study area is classified as currently not suitable
for teff, chickpea and lentil, respectively. The vector overlay result indicated that 4.0%
of land is highly suitable for both teff and wheat; 11.2% is highly suitable for wheat and
chickpea; 2.6 % is highly suitable for teff, wheat and chickpea. In the same manner,
26.8% of the study area is moderately suitable for teff, wheat, chickpea and lentil.
Therefore, integrating MCE with GIS for land suitability analysis for agricultural crops for
spatial decision making process is a worthwhile technique. Hence, to increase the choice
for the stakeholders and decision makers, further analysis for different LUTs is necessary.
Keywords: Mojo Watershed, Land suitability analysis, GIS and Remote Sensing
techniques, Multi‐criteria Evaluation, Suitable land allocation
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Keywords
Mojo Watershed, Land suitability analysis, GIS and Remote Sensing techniques, Multi‐criteria Evaluation, Suitable land allocation