| dc.description.abstract | Land suitability analysis is a method of land evaluation, which measures the degree of
appropriateness of land for a certain use. Land suitability analysis is a prerequisite to achieving
optimum utilization of the available land resources. The aim of this study was to identify and
delineate suitable areas for SZ9314 cotton variety based on physical and climatic factors of
production using a Multi-Criteria Evaluation (MCE) & GIS approach. The study was carried out
in Kamwenge district in Uganda. Biophysical variables of soil, climate and topography were
considered for suitability analysis.
Agriculture is the mainstay of local economy in the study area, but the production is very low
because some of the cotton varieties being introduced are not doing well. There was need
therefore to identify and delineate suitable areas for growing SZ9314 cotton variety to achieve
maximum potential yield. Three suitability criteria i.e. soil (PH, texture, depth, drainage), climate
(rainfall, temperature) and topography were evaluated based on agronomist experts opinions and
FAO guideline for agriculture.
All data were stored in ArcGIS 10.3 environment and the factor maps were generated. For MCE,
Pair wise Comparison Matrix was applied and the suitable areas for SZ9314 cotton variety were
generated and graduated. AHP with the integration of GIS-based multi-criterion decision making,
an approach using DEM was utilized to evaluate land suitability for agriculture production in
Kamwenge district. Various ‘expert opinions’ were used to assign importance of the selected
parameters and pair wise comparison matrix was used to establish the weights. Finally, the land
cover map was overlaid with the suitability map to identify variances between the present and
potential land use of Kamwenge district. The results of this research revealed that, 35.16 % area
is classified as highly suitable, 34.44% as marginally suitable, 22.72 % as suitable, and 7.68 % as
non-suitable for the growing of SZ9314 cotton variety. The results showed that the potential area
for SZ9314 cotton growing is 81796 ha .The techniques, methodology and results of the study
can be effective to assess the suitable land for cotton growing and agriculture in Kamwenge
district. | en_US |
