AGRICULTURAL LAND SUITABILITY MAPPING USING MULTIPLE CRITERIA DECISION MAKING AND QGIS ENVIRONMENT

ABSTRACT

This study shows an agricultural land use suitability analysis using the Multiple Criteria Decision Making (MCDM) specifically the Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) approach within the QGIS (Quantum Geographic Information System) software. This research addresses the challenge of identifying optimal agricultural land by incorporating multiple criteria decision-making, specifically using the Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) within QGIS. The study aims to systematically evaluate land based on factors like land use, soil type, and slope, prioritizing and mapping suitable agricultural areas. The research's scope encompasses a thorough examination of these criteria, assigning varying importance, and ultimately contributing to informed land-use decisions for sustainable agriculture. An agricultural land suitability map was obtained to access the suitability of land for various agricultural activities taking into account multiple criteria. Three agricultural land conditioning parameters where chosen to be factors affecting the suitability of land for agricultural purposes. The factors chosen were land use, soil type and slope. These factors were processed into raster layers within the QGIS environment after ranking the factors and obtaining the factor weights using AHP techniques. The three raster layers were combined into a single raster layer called suitability raster using the raster calculator by inputting the derived factor weights. The suitability raster layer was processed into the agricultural land suitability map. The agricultural land suitability map was reclassified to show various ranges of suitability for agricultural land use from very poor to very good suitability for agricultural land use.