Abstract:
Land suitability analysis is a prerequisite for sustainable agricultural production. This study aimed
to evaluate the current physical land suitability for major crops: maize, banana, teff, and barley
in Sile Watershed, Southern Ethiopia. A GIS-based multi-criteria evaluation approach was applied
to evaluate the physical land suitability for the major crops. Various physical land attributes have
been used as input parameters, namely temperature, rainfall, altitude, slope, and soil (salinity,
texture, pH, nitrogen, phosphorus, and organic carbon). The optimum overlay analysis results
revealed that from the total area, 51.7%, 20.6%, and 21.4% of the land was found to be highly
suitable, moderately suitable, and marginally suitable for maize; 41.7%, 11.9%, and 18.8% of land
was found to be highly, moderately, and marginally suitable for banana; 42.2%, 26.1%, and 15.4%
of land was found to be highly, moderately, and marginally suitable for teff; 35.4%, 40.1%, and
20.1% of the land was found to be highly, moderately, and marginally suitable for barley
production, respectively. However, 6.3 %, 27.6%, 16.3%, and 4.4% of the study area was classified
as not suitable for maize, banana, teff, and barley production, respectively. This study
demonstrated that the study area has huge potential for major crop production based on physical
land suitability analysis. Topographic factors (altitude) and climatic factors (temperature and
rainfall) are the dominant factors that influence the suitability of agricultural land for the major
crops in the study area. This study report urges the concerned stakeholders to properly use and
adopt the optimum physical land suitability planning to expend the present land resources for more
crop productivity in a sustainable manner in the region
