Land Suitability Evaluation for Alfalfa and Barley Based on FAO and Fuzzy Multi-Criteria Approaches in Iranian Arid Region

The present research aims to apply several approaches for suitability evaluation of lands under cultivation ofalfalfa and barley in Chaharmil mechanized farming center, Ardestan town, Isfahan province, Iran. Climatic andsoil maps of the climate and soil data were provided in raster format. Land evaluation carried out using maximumlimitation, parametric and multi-criteria (Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) and fuzzy AHP) approaches. Landindices, calculated by these methods were correlated with the observed yields. The best relationships were givenby fuzzy AHP for alfalfa and barley, which illustrates the accuracy of this approach for land evaluation. Theresults of fuzzy AHP showed that the majority of the study area is potentially more suitable for alfalfa than forbarley. The membership functions revealed that soil texture is the main constraint for alfalfa and barleyproduction.