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Physical land suitability evaluation of rainfed crop production of wheat, barley, and teff in Arsi zone of Ethiopia

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Abstract

An evaluation of the appropriateness of the land is necessary for sustainable agricultural production. The aim of this study was to evaluate the physical appropriateness of the land in the Arsi zone of Ethiopia for the three major cereal crops: wheat, barley, and teff. The key data sources were climate, topography, soil quality, and current land use/land cover. The analytical hierarchy process was used to evaluate each parameter pair by pair earlier. Finally, once the weights have been calculated, a composite suitable land allocation map is created using a weighted overlay analysis that combines diagnostic soil, climate, and topographic criteria, as well as vector overlay evaluation. About 79.49, 1.15, and 90.56% of the study area are moderately suitable for the production of wheat, teff, and barley, respectively. Furthermore, 20.50, 79.29, and 9.43% of the study area were marginally suitable for wheat, teff, and barley production, respectively. Only about 20% of the study area was discovered to be not suitable for teff crop production. Vector overlay result show that about 0.04 and 0.36% of the land in the study area is moderately and marginally suitable for production of all specified land utilization categories, respectively. In contrast, about 70.16 percent of land was moderately acceptable for wheat and barley crop production but marginally suitable for teff, while about 8.87% of land was marginally suitable for wheat and teff cultivation but moderately suitable for barley cultivation. Soil organic matter, temperature, length of growing season, rainfall, soil depth, and PH were identified to be the primary limiting elements preventing the crop's cultivation in the study area. Integration of AHP with GIS was discovered to be a powerful technique for suitability categorization in the research area.

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Data availability

The datasets generated and analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

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Acknowledgements

The authors owe a debt of gratitude to all secondary data providers. The authors are also appreciative to everyone who helped them at various phases of the project. We appreciate the anonymous reviewers’ feedback.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Geography and Environmental Studies, College of Social Sciences and Humanities, Bonga University, P.O. Box 334, Bonga, Ethiopia

    Dereje Biru Debalke

  2. Department of Geography and Environmental Studies, College of Social Sciences and Humanities, Bahir Dar University, P.O. Box 79, Bahir Dar, Ethiopia

    Daniel Ayalew Mengistu

  3. Department of Geography and Environmental Studies, College of Social Sciences and Humanities, Salale University, P.O. Box 245, Fiche, Ethiopia

    Tesfahun Endalew Admas

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  1. Dereje Biru Debalke
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  2. Daniel Ayalew Mengistu
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Contributions

The work was planned and designed by Dereje Biru Debalke and Daniel Ayalew Mengistu. The technique section was also verified. The publication’s analysis, validation, and drafting were all helped by the writers. Tesfahun Endalew Admas also assisted in latter stages of the paper’s revision. The final draft has been reviewed and approved by all authors.

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Correspondence to Dereje Biru Debalke.

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Debalke, D.B., Mengistu, D.A. & Admas, T.E. Physical land suitability evaluation of rainfed crop production of wheat, barley, and teff in Arsi zone of Ethiopia. Arab J Geosci 16, 177 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12517-023-11271-x

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