Choosing Suitable Site for Some Forage Legumes Using Multi-Criteria Assessment and Geostatistical Approach

Abstract

Land suitability analysis is a prerequisite to achieving optimum utilization of the available land resources. Lack of knowledge on best combination of factors that suit production of forage legume has contributed to the low production. The aim of this study were to determine the most suitable areas for some forage legumes (Medicago sativa L., Onobrychis sativa L., Vicia sativa L., Vicia villosa L., Vicia pannonica L., Vicia narbonensis L., Trifolium pratense L., Trifolium repens L.) based on some physic-chemical properties of soils in the Samsun province located in the Central Black Sea Region of Turkey. To overcome the management and analysis of large volumes of spatial data for land suitability in this study, the geographic information system, geostatistic techniques and multi-criteria assessment using analytical hierarchy approach approaches were used to solve complex geographical problems and to reach reliable results for forage legume cultivation. According to results, 83.2% of the study area has highly (S1) and moderately (S2) suitable whereas, 16.8% of the study area has marginally suitable coded as S3 for forage legumes cultivation.