Crop suitability analysis in water resource management of Paschim Medinipur District, India: a remote sensing approach

Abstract

The present study on crop suitability analysis is a prerequisite for achieving optimum utilization of the available land resources for sustainable agricultural production. To assess the suitability of crop type for a particular land area, at least five parameters are considered, i.e., physical properties of soil, chemical properties of soil, groundwater availability, irrigation status and climatic condition. The present study area, i.e. Keshpur, Salboni and Midnapore Blocks of Paschim Medinipur District in West Bengal, has the problem of overproduction of same crops resulting in steep fall in price. To overcome this problem, the specific crop suitability in a particular area was undertaken using Geospatial overlay technique. The methodology adopted was to use Landsat ETM+ satellite images in the evaluation of physical and chemical attributes of soil, groundwater level, drainage network system, irrigation, land use and land cover of the study area. Then on the basis of the overlay maps, a crop suitability map was prepared and the result shows that few portions are suitable for groundnut cultivation. The lowland part of the study area and the river basin are most suitable for cultivation of paddy, vegetables, potato and some other crops. It was found that better land-use management could be applied in different land components as the conventional land assessment techniques agonize from the limitation of same cropping technique though it is suitable for different crops. It is observed from the study that though the area is highly fertile according to physicochemical properties of the soil different crop should be cultivated using the suitability characteristic of the soil and furthermore it will boost the income of the marginal farmers.