Geoinformation system integration and methods of multi-criteria decision analysis for assessment of land suitability for agricultural use

The expediency of joint application of methods of multi-criteria decision analysis of (MCDA) and geoinformation systems (GIS) in order to assess the suitability of lands for cultivation of agricultural crops is substantiated. The implementation of this approach will make it possible to partially automate the process of assessing land. The studies were carried out on the territory of ZAO Mirny, Kochenevsky District, Novosibirsk Region (54°56′24″ N, 82°06′12″ E), located in the forest-steppe zone. Taking into account the peculiarities of the territory under consideration, the following criteria were selected for assessing suitability of lands: drainage condition, soils granulometric composition, contrast of soil cover, working areas elevation pattern, humus layer thickness, ploughness, terrain slope angle, exposure of slopes, erosion degree. The sources of spatial information were land management maps, soil and topographic maps, digital elevation model (DEM), SRTM, ultra-high resolution satellite images. The collection and processing of spatial information was carried out in QuantumGIS (QGIS), which has an open modular architecture. ELECTRE TRI and the hierarchy analysis method were selected for the analytical assessment of information within MCDA. For both methods, there are procedures that are integrated with QGIS. With the help of QGIS GIS tools, the land use of a particular agricultural enterprise was divided into working areas, their boundaries and areas were determined. A method for obtaining an attribute database is described for each criterion. An overview of the ELECTRE TRI methods and the hierarchy analysis method is given, and their launch procedures in QGIS are described. The criteria weights were obtained using the hierarchy analysis method (Easy АНР procedure in QuantumGIS), and the main result – the land suitability map (according to the FAO classification) – was obtained using the ELECTRE TRI method (ELECTRE TRI procedure for QuantumGIS). Since the result of the ELECTRE TRI procedure are two decision maps: according to the pessimistic and optimistic scenarios, additional studies were carried out, on the basis of which it was possible to establish that the map obtained according to the optimistic scenario has a greater consistency with the natural conditions of the agricultural enterprise.

geoinformation systems, multi-criteria decision analysis, agricultural land

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