GIS Based Land Suitability Analysis and Mapping for Major Irrigation Methods for South Australia
- Publicada
- Servidor
- Preprints.org
- DOI
- 10.20944/preprints202606.0580.v1
Investigating the suitability of land resources for different irrigation methods is increasingly becoming vital with increasing demand for food and fiber, which in turn require improved land productivity and efficient use of available water resource for irrigation development. This is because land evaluation is crucial for proper land use planning and management. Among the different methods for land suitability analysis for irrigation methods; parametric method has been become popular the recent years. In this study, GIS based land suitability mapping employing parametric method was used to assess land suitability for different irrigation methods in South Australia. The suitability analysis were carried out for three major irrigation methods, the surface irrigation, sprinkler irrigation methods, and drip irrigation methods. The result shows that South Australia has limited land resources that is highly suitable for any of the irrigation methods. Significant size of agricultural lands of the state is moderately and marginally suitable for drip and sprinkler methods. Therefore, giving priority for drip irrigation methods is crucial not only to allocate land resources properly but also to adopt to water scarcity condition in the region. It is recommended that policy makers, planners, researchers, and land owners to use the results of this land suitability study as reference for land use planning, land resource management, and irrigation development.