Abstract:
In Ethiopia, land is usually exploited traditionally by smallholder farmers without land
suitability assessment. This study was aimed to analyze the suitability of the land for selected
agricultural crop production by using Geographic Information System and Remote Sensing
techniques. The factors that were considered for the land suitability analysis for crop
production were land use land cover, slope, soil type, soil texture, soil pH, temperature,
rainfall, and cat ion exchange capacity. Temperature and rainfall data were gathered from the
National Meteorological Agency; soil data were collected from the Ministry of Agriculture;
and slope data were acquired via the digital analysis model. Multi-criteria decision and
Analytical Hierarchy Process method was used to analyses the land suitability of the study
area for Teff and Wheat production. The pair-wise comparison and weighted linear
combination methods were used to determine the weight of the factors. Land suitability maps
were developed in based on four suitability classes such as highly, moderate, marginally and
not suitable for both Teff and Wheat production. The results of the land suitability analysis
revealed that 18.4% (27,850ha), 42.6% (65,030ha), 32.8% (49,620ha) and 6.2% (8,480ha) of
the area was highly suitable, moderate suitable, marginally suitable and not suitable for the
optimum production of Teff, respectively and about 16% (24,290 ha), 40.4% (61,860ha), 37%
(55,650ha) and 6.6% (9,170ha) of the area was highly suitable, moderate suitable, marginally
suitable and not suitable for Wheat production, respectively. Although there are slight
variations between the suitability classes of the area for Teff and Wheat production, the
variations between the equivalent classes of the crops are insignificant. The result also showed
that over four-fifth (80%) of study area requires applying soil and water conservation, and soil
fertility management measures in order to optimize the yield and production of both crops.
These studies were restricted in two crops type whereas further studies can be made to
increase the choice and identify the best another use of a land.
