Using Geospatial Information Technology for Regional Assessment of Food Crop Land in South Sulawesi

Abstract

Recently, geospatial information on land suitability and land availability for specific purposes has become a prerequisite for strategic planning in regional development. Although geospatial data on land resources and their uses have become more available and detailed, in some circumstances, their geographical representations for spatial decision making are often considerably intricate. Accordingly, it requires advanced geospatial methods and approaches that could deal with those complex phenomena in an effective manner. The principal aim of this paper is to utilize Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and Remote Sensing (RS) to assess food crop land suitability at a regional scale. We fully utilize integrated techniques of GIS and RS in mapping land areas of three regencies, namely Takalar and Jeneponto, where such regencies have to date become strategic areas for food crop development, especially maize. Our preliminary finding as show that although Jeneponto district has long been recognized as a very dry area (where some parts of the region have less than 1,000 mm annual rainfall), this area has a very large potential suitability for maize cultivation, followed by Takalar. Such analysis has also been confirmed by the results of our geospatial data analysis following ground visits and local government statistical data. The results of this study not only present the suitability of future development of food crop especially maize, but also depict spatially the distribution of land class fitness for a given crop in such three regions; and thus provide the basis for decision making in future land use management.