Suitable sites for organic farming as a critical component of sustainable development using GIS and AHP: A case study of Zanjan, Iran

Land suitability analysis is a new approach to evaluate suitable locations for a certain use. Wielding GIS-based Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) technique, the method aims at identifying and delineating the lands best supporting organic farming. The present study was carried out in Zanjan province, as a model of efficiency, in Iran. Farming is the main support of local economy in the study area; however, the production yield is very low because some of the crops being introduced are not doing well. Five suitability criteria including soil structure, land use, slope and proximity to roads as well as drainage network were selected on agronomist experts’ opinions for organic farming. An AHP was exploited to determine relative importance of criteria, and the resulting weights were subsequently used to develop the suitability maps/layers using GIS software. Land suitability map was finally generated by weighted overlaying maps through supervised classification. The results of this research revealed that only 77.45 km2 which accounts for 30.5 % of total area is more suitable for organic farming in Zanjan province. The most limiting factor of organic farming suitability map of Zanjan area was enrich soil. Study revealed that no area was identified as the most and/or best suitable land. More researches should be conducted to test the effects of other parameters on suitable locations for organic farming in Zanjan.

کلیدواژه ها:

AHP ، suitability map ، organic farming ، Zanjan