Feasibility Study of Determination of Planting Areas for Wheat and Canola using GIS (Case Study: Maroon Basin of Khuzestan Province)

بوم شناسی کشاورزی

Article 12, Volume 10, Issue 2 - Serial Number 36, June 2018, Pages 473-489   

Document Type: Scientific - Research

DOI: 10.22067/jag.v10i2.58043

Authors

Nosratollah Heidarpour^{* 1}; Hoshang Bahramy¹; Yaghoob Mansoori¹; Saeed Hojati²

¹Department of Biosystem Engineering, Faculty of Agriculture, Shahid Chamran University of Ahvaz , Ahvaz. Iran

²Department of Science and Soil Engineering, Faculty of Agriculture, Shahid Chamran University of Ahvaz, . Ahaz, Iran

Abstract

Introduction
Undoubtedly, development of agricultural production systems without sufficient knowledge of the current situation and defining constraints is impossible. The potential of lands for cultivation of crops is determined by evaluation of biophysical and environmental variables. Therefore, climate, soil and geomorphologic environmental components are the most important agro-ecological variables for the evaluations. GIS is a powerful set of tools for collecting, storing, retrieving, transforming and displaying spatial data of the real world. Much progress has been made over the last twenty years in developing methods of multi criteria-land suitability evaluations, especially by integrating GIS with multi-criteria decision making (MCDM). From MCDM, the analytic hierarchy process (AHP) is one of the most common methods to determine criteria weights. The integration of GIS and AHP approach is a useful method for decision-making, suitable for analysis of a big amount of data with a new set, enabling to show them in the form of maps and shapes. The aim of this study was to investigate the potentiality of lands for cultivation of Canola and Wheat in order to increase the sustainable productivity of the crops in Maroon basin of Khuzestan province, Iran, using a GIS based approach.
Materials and Methods
The study area of this experiment is located in the Maroon basin of Khuzestan Province in South West Iran with hot and dry climatic conditions. This area contains nearly 30 percent of current agricultural lands in Khuzestan province. Relevant environment components such as soil properties (pH, EC, texture, organic matter), topography (Elevation and slope), climate factors (precipitation and temperature) and water resources potential for cultivation of canola and wheat at different spatial resolutions were considered, collected from scientific references and then classified. Afterwards, digital information layers for Wheat and Canola were prepared based on the growth parameters and available environmental conditions, with AHP weighting using GIS. Experts’ opinions were employed to determine the sufficient weights of each factors using relevant questionnaires. Finally, the generated agricultural land suitability maps were divided into 5 categories according to FAO classification guidelines as: highly suitable, suitable, moderately suitable, marginally suitable and not suitable.
Results and Discussion
The results of the research showed that among the factors contributing to land, the weightings of soil salinity and slope, with 0.2231 and 0.0254 were the highest and lowest limit, respectively. The weights are applied in overlapping layers of existing conditions using GIS software shows that an area of 632473 hectares of land in the basin Maroon, each year, and the different potential for canola and wheat crops. According to the agricultural land use suitability map, it was determined that 7.4% (46890 ha) of the studied area is highly suitable, 9.8% (62013 ha) suitable, 27.8% (175950 ha) moderately suitable, 29.4% (185434 ha) marginally suitable and 25.6% (162186 ha) not suitable for cultivation of wheat and canola. High soil salinity and limited water resources in the studied area were the most effective factors lowering the suitability of agricultural lands, in this study.
Conclusion
GIS is a powerful tool, as it provides many special features in a single system usable for land suitability. Generally, the goal of this study was to achieve some conclusions on the quality of land, decide on crop rotation and scheme for the management of the farms. This study were realized with the aid of GIS and AHP. It determined spatial highly suitable in Maroon basin district of Khuzestan province which help to sustainable agricultural production.
Acknowledgements
This study was supported by the Agricultural Research, Education and Extension Organization, Jehad Agricultural and Water and Power Authority of Khuzestan province. We acknowledge them for their assist.

Keywords

Analytical Hierarchy Process; Crop rotation; Land suitability

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