Land Suitability Assessment for Potato Crop using Analytic Hierarchy Process Technique and Geographic Information System

Agricultural land-suitability analysis is a prerequisite to achieve optimum utilization of the available land resources for sustainable agricultural production. The Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) technique coupled with Geographic Information System (GIS) can be a unique tool for land-suitability studies. AHP-GIS technique based on soil nutrient criteria of soil texture, pH, organic carbon, electric conductivity, available nitrogen, phosphorous, potassium, and zinc was used for land-suitability assessment in Tarkeswar Block, Hooghly district, West Bengal for growing potato. The study area was classified into suitable land categories based on soil nutrient levels analysed from 50 randomly-selected plot-based soil samples. Pair-wise comparison matrix-based ranking was computed considering the importance of each criterion for potato crop in the area. Suitability maps were developed and analysed in ArcGIS software environment. The total area was classified into ‘highly suitable’ class occupying 61 ha (21%), ‘moderately suitable’ class in 195 ha (67%), ‘marginally suitable’ class in 32 ha (11%) and ‘not suitable’ class in 3 ha (1%) land areas. Yield distribution map of potato crop showed nearly 106 ha (36.5%) area producing higher tuber yield of 20 t.ha-1. The proposed suitability map was validated against crop yield map where nearly 253 ha (87%) area classified under ‘highly suitable’ to ‘moderately suitable’ classes was found to give better potato yield of 15 t.ha-1or more. The AHP-GIS technique can be used for crop rotation analysis for multiple seasons for better crop selection in long run.