Abstract
Increasing population has posed insurmountable challenges to agriculture in the provision of future food security, particularly in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region where biophysical conditions are not well-suited for agriculture. Iran, as a major agricultural country in the MENA region, has long been in the quest for food self-sufficiency, however, the capability of its land and water resources to realize this goal is largely unknown. Using very high-resolution spatial data sets, we evaluated the capacity of Iran’s land for sustainable crop production based on the soil properties, topography, and climate conditions. We classified Iran’s land suitability for cropping as (million ha): very good 0.4% (0.6), good 2.2% (3.6), medium 7.9% (12.8), poor 11.4% (18.5), very poor 6.3% (10.2), unsuitable 60.0% (97.4), and excluded areas 11.9% (19.3). In addition to overarching limitations caused by low precipitation, low soil organic carbon, steep slope, and high soil sodium content were the predominant soil and terrain factors limiting the agricultural land suitability in Iran. About 50% of the Iran’s existing croplands are located in low-quality lands, representing an unsustainable practice. There is little room for cropland expansion to increase production but redistribution of cropland to more suitable areas may improve sustainability and reduce pressure on water resources, land, and ecosystem in Iran.
Highlights
Increasing population and consumption have raised concerns about the capability of agriculture in the provision of future food security[1, 2]
Global Agro-Ecological Zone (GAEZ v3.0) analysis[12] suggests that there are vast acreages of suitable but unused land in the world that can potentially be exploited for crop production; these lands are distributed very unevenly across the globe with some regions, such as the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), deemed to have very little or no land for expansion
When land suitability was evaluated solely based on the soil and topographic constraints, 120 million ha (74%) of land was found to have a poor or lower suitability ranks (Table 2)
Summary
Increasing population and consumption have raised concerns about the capability of agriculture in the provision of future food security[1, 2]. Whether there are enough land and water resources to realize the production growth needed in the future has been the subject of several global-scale assessments[7,8,9]. Globally available fresh water resources exceed current agricultural needs but due to their patchy distribution, an increasing number of countries, in the MENA region, are experiencing severe water scarcity[10]. Owing to these regional differences, location-specific analyses are necessary to examine if the available land and water resources in each country will suffice the future food requirements of its nation, if the country is still experiencing significant population growth. SoilGrids[32] SoilGrids[32] SoilGrids[32] SoilGrids[32] Derived from SoilGrids[32] The Global Soil Dataset for Earth System Modeling[54] The Global Soil Dataset for Earth System Modeling[54] The Global Soil Dataset for Earth System Modeling[54] The Global Soil Dataset for Earth System Modeling[54] The Global Soil Dataset for Earth System Modeling[54] The Global Soil Dataset for Earth System Modeling[54]
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