New Techniques and Technologies Integration in Land Ecological Suitability to Agricultural Land Uses

Abstract

Background and Objective: Agriculture plays a major role in sustainable development. Optimizing land use allocation and achieving sustainable development is one of the main goals of agricultural planners. The purpose of this study is to analyze the suitability of lands for agricultural uses based on ecological criteria by integrating new techniques and technologies. Materials and Methods: The ecological criteria affecting agricultural land suitability were selected based on references review and experts' opinions. Criteria maps were prepared using different methods with the help of geographical information system. Criteria and sub-criteria wieghting was performed by pairwise comparisons within analytical heirarchy process. The sub-criteria maps was combined using the linear-weighted combination method to evaluate the land suitability. Results: The results show that the most important criteria for assessing the ecological suitability of the study area for agricultural uses are rainfall, temperature, water quantity and slope, respectively. The findings also show that most of the area (65%) is in the suitable class for agricultural uses, but the ecological suitability and current land use are matched only at 71% of the study area. Conclusion: This study emphasizes the integration of spatial information system, hierarchical analysis, linear-weight combination and remote sensing as a framework and an efficient method in multi-criteria land suitability assessment for agricultural uses towards sustainable development and is an important and useful regional guide for identifying suitable areas for development, planning and management of agricultural uses.

Keywords

• analytical hierarchy process
• current landuse
• multi criteria evaluation
• spatial information system
• sustainable development