Assessment of crop-land suitability by the multi-criteria evaluation approach and geographic information system: A scoping review

Abstract

The crop land suitablity assessment (LSA) has importance for managing land and water resources and developing sustainable agricultural systems. In the field of determining the suitablity of crop land, the multi-criteria evaluation approach (MCEA) or multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) is becoming more popular as a tool for analysing difficult situations and obtaining logical conclusions. The 75 relevant publications from 2010 to 2023 reviewed and summarised in this paper to precisely explain and identify MCEA application areas and decision-making problems resolved within the crop land suitablity assessment. The findings indicated that the MCDM or MCEA techiques have been applied with or without remote sensing or Agricultural Land Use Evaluation System, paramatic methods, etc. for land suitability evaluation. This study also contributes to the classification of criteria used in this purpose. A total of 117 parameters from six groups: soil properties, climate, topography, hydro-geomorphology, landuse compatibility, and hazard are necessary in LSA