Gis Based Land Suitability Analysis for Wheat (Triticum Aestivum) Production: The Case of Delo Menna and Harena Buluk District, Oromia Regional State of Ethiopia
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Date
2022-07-01
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Addis Ababa University
Abstract
Appropriate land use decisions have a vital role to achieve optimum productivity of land and to ensure environmental sustainability. Land suitability analysis can support decision maker to make a wise decision in order to get optimum benefit out of the land and to sustain production. This study is targeted in evaluating actual land suitability, in a case study of Delo Menna and Harena Buluk district, Bale Zone, Southeast of Ethiopia for wheat production using GIS and remote sensing method. It covers a total area of 1230km2 of seven rural Kebeles from both districts. The Analyses process is depending on FAO land evaluation guideline. It uses two suitability orders which are suitable and not suitable and then five suitability classes have been used: Highly Suitable (S1), Moderately Suitable (S2), Marginally Suitable (S3), currently not suitable (N1) and permanently not suitable (N2). In support of this classification slope, elevation, soil drainage, soil texture, soil depth, soil pH, soil organic carbon (SOC), temperature, rainfall and present land use/land cover (LULC) of the study area were considered in this study. Protected area is considered as a constraint in the area for crop production. Multiple factors are taken into account for making decision, in doing so weighted overlay analysis of ARCGIS environment aggregate factors based on their influence derived from pairwise comparison. Result of weighted overlay and Boolean constraint map are aggregated to produce suitability map of the area for wheat production. Accordingly, the result showed three suitability classes: moderately suitable, marginally suitable, and currently not suitable, with 57.19% (146519.21 Km2 ), 39.51% (101233.33 Km2 ) and 57.19% (146519.21 Km2 ) of the study area, respectively. Generally, the districts agricultural authorities targeted in making wheat as an alternative cereal crop, this study can be used as a primary instrument for better planning. However the factors used area not the only criteria for making decision inclusion of socioeconomic issue may complement for better suitability analysis of wheat in the area. Based the finding it is highly recommended that agricultural practice need to modify and follow strict production management, limiting factor that has a probability of treatment need to be treat, wheat species that tolerate those limiting factor have to be select to get better production yield. Protected area should be strictly considered while using the result.
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Factors, Suitability Analysis, Suitability, Weighted Overlay Analysis, Wheat