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Agricultural Land Suitability Evaluator Using GIS, Multi Criteria and Sensitivity Analysis

There is a pressing need to develop an optimal land evaluation method to identify in which part of a region selected crops could provide high yields. Matching the requirement of landuse with land’s capability ensures production levels would not exceed the capacity which the land can support. The pu...

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Main Author: Abdalla Elsheikh, Ranya Fadlalla
Format: Thesis
Language:English
Published: 2011
Online Access:http://psasir.upm.edu.my/id/eprint/19720/
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spelling my.upm.eprints.197202014-06-30T06:44:04Z http://psasir.upm.edu.my/id/eprint/19720/ Agricultural Land Suitability Evaluator Using GIS, Multi Criteria and Sensitivity Analysis Abdalla Elsheikh, Ranya Fadlalla There is a pressing need to develop an optimal land evaluation method to identify in which part of a region selected crops could provide high yields. Matching the requirement of landuse with land’s capability ensures production levels would not exceed the capacity which the land can support. The purpose of this study is to develop an agricultural land suitability evaluation system using Geographic Information System and Multi Criteria. The system works on reducing the subjectivity of weights based on Sensitivity Analysis. Sensitivity Analysis was used to display the spatial change and test the output variation when weights of parameters are systemically varied over a range of interest. The land suitability assessment relied on the FAO framework of 1976, with some necessary modifications to suit the local environmental conditions. The developed model for land suitability is based on a classification structure rather than a set of guidelines as in the FAO framework. Fourteen land characteristics and their threshold values were determined for the study area, Terengganu state in Malaysia, and grouped into nine land qualities. The land suitability model was constructed with GIS capabilities. Mango was selected as the crop for which the land suitability map will be produced. Soil type, climate, slope, erosion hazard and flood were created and integrated in GIS environment as information layers and then overlaid to produce the land suitability map for mango crop. The model specifications were assessed through verification, validation, and sensitivity analysis. The sensitivity analyses and variation of function were used to determine the level of importance for each defined criterion in order to reduce the subjectivity in weights. The influence of each criterion was visualized spatially for each scenario and the variations of function were used to test the stability of the result. The findings of the weighting schemes emphasized that soil, slope and erosion are the most important factors in the study area. Conversely, climate and flood were found to be less important in the study area. The results of this analysis indicated that 31% of the study area is considered as the most suitable place for mango cultivation, 55% of the area as moderately suitable and 9% percent as marginally suitable. The study found 5% of the study area to be not suitable for mango agriculture. The model was utilized and accepted by the Department of Agriculture in Putrajaya. It showed that it can serve as a decision support tool for farmers and decision makers. 2011-02 Thesis NonPeerReviewed Abdalla Elsheikh, Ranya Fadlalla (2011) Agricultural Land Suitability Evaluator Using GIS, Multi Criteria and Sensitivity Analysis. PhD thesis, Universiti Putra Malaysia. English
institution Universiti Putra Malaysia
building UPM Library
collection Institutional Repository
continent Asia
country Malaysia
content_provider Universiti Putra Malaysia
content_source UPM Institutional Repository
url_provider http://psasir.upm.edu.my/
language English
description There is a pressing need to develop an optimal land evaluation method to identify in which part of a region selected crops could provide high yields. Matching the requirement of landuse with land’s capability ensures production levels would not exceed the capacity which the land can support. The purpose of this study is to develop an agricultural land suitability evaluation system using Geographic Information System and Multi Criteria. The system works on reducing the subjectivity of weights based on Sensitivity Analysis. Sensitivity Analysis was used to display the spatial change and test the output variation when weights of parameters are systemically varied over a range of interest. The land suitability assessment relied on the FAO framework of 1976, with some necessary modifications to suit the local environmental conditions. The developed model for land suitability is based on a classification structure rather than a set of guidelines as in the FAO framework. Fourteen land characteristics and their threshold values were determined for the study area, Terengganu state in Malaysia, and grouped into nine land qualities. The land suitability model was constructed with GIS capabilities. Mango was selected as the crop for which the land suitability map will be produced. Soil type, climate, slope, erosion hazard and flood were created and integrated in GIS environment as information layers and then overlaid to produce the land suitability map for mango crop. The model specifications were assessed through verification, validation, and sensitivity analysis. The sensitivity analyses and variation of function were used to determine the level of importance for each defined criterion in order to reduce the subjectivity in weights. The influence of each criterion was visualized spatially for each scenario and the variations of function were used to test the stability of the result. The findings of the weighting schemes emphasized that soil, slope and erosion are the most important factors in the study area. Conversely, climate and flood were found to be less important in the study area. The results of this analysis indicated that 31% of the study area is considered as the most suitable place for mango cultivation, 55% of the area as moderately suitable and 9% percent as marginally suitable. The study found 5% of the study area to be not suitable for mango agriculture. The model was utilized and accepted by the Department of Agriculture in Putrajaya. It showed that it can serve as a decision support tool for farmers and decision makers.
format Thesis
author Abdalla Elsheikh, Ranya Fadlalla
spellingShingle Abdalla Elsheikh, Ranya Fadlalla
Agricultural Land Suitability Evaluator Using GIS, Multi Criteria and Sensitivity Analysis
author_facet Abdalla Elsheikh, Ranya Fadlalla
author_sort Abdalla Elsheikh, Ranya Fadlalla
title Agricultural Land Suitability Evaluator Using GIS, Multi Criteria and Sensitivity Analysis
title_short Agricultural Land Suitability Evaluator Using GIS, Multi Criteria and Sensitivity Analysis
title_full Agricultural Land Suitability Evaluator Using GIS, Multi Criteria and Sensitivity Analysis
title_fullStr Agricultural Land Suitability Evaluator Using GIS, Multi Criteria and Sensitivity Analysis
title_full_unstemmed Agricultural Land Suitability Evaluator Using GIS, Multi Criteria and Sensitivity Analysis
title_sort agricultural land suitability evaluator using gis, multi criteria and sensitivity analysis
publishDate 2011
url http://psasir.upm.edu.my/id/eprint/19720/
_version_ 1643827123245285376
score 13.211869

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