Agro-Ecological Zoning for Mustard Crop Suitability in Semi-Arid Regions of India
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.31305/rrijm.2026.v11.n01.029Keywords:
Agro-ecological zones, Crop suitability, Fuzzy analysis, Semi-aridAbstract
Agro-Ecological zoning is an important tool for recognizing land capabilities to be allocated for the best and most profitable types of productivity. According to FAO studies, AEZ is the combinations of the climatic, topographic, soil and land use characteristics. In this research, semi-arid region demarcated using aridity index through 30-year point data of precipitation and potential evapotranspiration. Data prepared by GIS, fuzzy membership function and AHP matrix and then used weighted linear combination or weighted sum for determining parameters weight for AEZ of mustard in semi-arid zone of India that includes climatic, topography, soil, and land use parameters. At first, a climatic zoning map was developed by mean annual temperature, rainfall, potential evapotranspiration data. The topography zoning map was developed using slope, aspect, and hypsometry. Edaphic map zonation was prepared through soil texture and soil erosion maps. Moreover, the land use map was developed by land use and land cover data. The results showed that significant parts of the studied area were classified as unsuitable 52.59% (1.388.731 ha), 27.84% (734.881 ha) and marginal with 27.53% (727.535 ha), 17.96% (474.566 ha) while the optimal zones were only 4.15% (109.697 ha) and 8.44% (223.210 ha). The results also showed that agroclimatic and agro-edaphic zone have the best factor and achieve highest weight in study.
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