Land suitability assessment for apple (Malus domestica) in the Republic of Korea using integrated soil and climate information, MLCM, and AHP

Hojung Kim,Kyomoon Shim

doi:10.25165/j.ijabe.20181102.2522

Abstract

Apples (Malus domestica) are one of the major fruits cultivated in South Korea and worldwide. To both sustain the productivity of apple trees and preserve the land, a land suitability assessment has been conducted. Two methods were used to analyze land suitability, a Most-Limiting Characteristic Method (MLCM) and an Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) with integrated soil and climate information based on the FAO classification framework. The most-limiting characteristic analysis showed that almost all areas were classified as marginally suitable (S3) or not suitable (N), which together accounted for 94.54% of the land in the Republic of Korea. On the contrary, AHP showed that S1 (34.1%) and S2 (44.17%) account for the majority of the land. Keywords: land suitability evaluation, biophysical modeling, GIS, land use planning, multi-criteria analysis, Republic of Korea DOI: 10.25165/j.ijabe.20181102.2522 Citation: Kim H, Shim K. Land suitability assessment for apple (Malus domestica) in the Republic of Korea using integrated soil and climate information, MLCM, and AHP. Int J Agric & Biol Eng, 2018; 11(2): 139–144.

Highlights

Land suitability assessment is the process of forecasting the land’s performance for special uses[1,2,3,4,5]
In the Republic of Korea, a system for soil and environmental information, “Heuktoram”, provides land suitability assessment for 64 agricultural products based on soil information, and an agricultural and future electronic climate map system built by the Rural Development Administration (RDA) provides land suitability assessment for apple, pear, peach, grape, sweet persimmon, and tangerine based on climate information[11,12]
Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) results in our research showed that climatic factors should be weighted more than soil factors, which is in agreement with that of Boonyanuphap et al.[20]

Summary

Introduction

Land suitability assessment is the process of forecasting the land’s performance for special uses[1,2,3,4,5]. In the Republic of Korea, a system for soil and environmental information, “Heuktoram”, provides land suitability assessment for 64 agricultural products based on soil information, and an agricultural and future electronic climate map system built by the Rural Development Administration (RDA) provides land suitability assessment for apple, pear, peach, grape, sweet persimmon, and tangerine based on climate information[11,12]. Both services provide useful land suitability assessments based on soil and climate information. If the results from the two can be combined, the accuracy of the results and the efficiency of big data will be enhanced

Methods

Results

Conclusion