Land Suitability and Crop Suitability Analysis Using Remote Sensing and Gis Application. A Case Study in Legambo Woreda
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Date
2010-06
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Addis Ababa University
Abstract
The present study was carried out to evaluate the suitability of the land for
agri cultural crop prodUction by using Remote Sensing and GIS application The
evaluation of land in terms of suitability classes was based on the method described
in FAO guidel ine for land evaluation. The factors that were considered for evaluation
of the land suitability for crop production were slope, soil drainage, soil texture , soil
depth, soil type and the present land use of the study area. Multi-criteria decision
evaluation method was used to evaluate the physical land characte ristics of the study
area for crop production. The techniques, which were used to weigh and
standardized the factors were pair-wise comparison and weighted linear combination .
After evaluating the physical land suitability for agricultural crop, land suitability map
was developed. This map was classified in to five suitabi lity classes based on FAO
guidelines. From the total land of the study area 100 km2 (9 .2%) was very suitable,
257 km2 (236%) was-suitable, 293 km2 (269%) was marginally suitable, 390 km2
(358%) was not suitable and 49 km2 (4 .5%) was permanently unsuitable for
agriculture. The land in the study area was also evaluated for suitability of wheat and
maize production. In addition to the factors mentioned above, temperature and
rainfall of the study area were used for crop suitability evaluation. Suitability maps for
both wheat and maize were developed. The crops suitability maps were classified in
to five suitability classes. The result shows that 82 km2 (7.5%) was very suitable, 249
km2 (23%) was suitable, 483 km2 (444%) was marginally suitable, 240 km2 (22%)
was not suitable and 35 km2 (31 %) was permanently unsuitable for wheat
production. Regarding suitability of maize 92 km2 (8.5%) was very suitable, 299 km2
(274 %) was suitable, 321 km2 (294%) was marginally suitable, 262 km2 (242%)
was not suitable and 1-14 km2 (105%) was permanently unsuitable. The evaluation of
physical land qualities of the study area indicates that the study area has a potential
for agricultural crops.
Keywords Land suitability; Crop suitability; MCDM; Pair-wise comparison
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Keywords
Land suitability, Crop suitability, MCDM, Pair-wise comparison