Land Suitability for Sorghum Using Multicriteria Evaluation (MCE) and Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) in Bunkure Kano State, Nigeria

Abstract

Among many factors limiting agricultural development in Nigeria is the lack of sufficient information on soils and their characteristics. An attempt has been made by this study in generating soil database and mapping out the physicochemical parameters and the suitable areas for sorghum cultivation. The aim of this research is to analyse suitable areas for the cultivation of Sorghum (Sorghum bicolour (L.)) Bunkure Local Government Area of Kano State. Fuzzy model, Multi Criteria Evaluation (MCE) and GIS were integrated in this study for land evaluation. Data sourced (parameters) for this study includes; 51 soil samples from a gridded map of the area to the depth of 30 cm. Satellite image (Spot-5) of 5 meter resolutions, Digital Elevation Model (DEM) and Soil characteristics map of the area. The parameters were subsequently integrated in Arc GIS 10.1 to generate the land suitability map for the selected crop. The result of the analysis shows that the area has been dominated with agricultural activities and the distribution of physicochemical parameters shows that pH ranging from 2.90-9.66, while Mg with moderate value of 0.04-0.93.The area is generally affected with low OC, Na, Ca, and OM with < 2, 0.01-0.23, 1.05-9.12ppm, and 0.02-1.6% respectively. The medium are N, CEC and K with 0.02-0.96%, 2.09-7.75meq/100g and 0.01-1.00 (cmol/kg) while salinity with 0.05-50.92. The results for suitability analysis indicated that about 860.91 ha (8.6%) of land is highly suitable (S1) and 1712.15 ha (17.27%) of the area are moderately suitable (S2). 2407.61 ha (24.29%) the area is found to be marginally suitable (S3) while, 3568.67 ha (36.01%) of the land to be moderately suitable and 1361.88 ha (13.74%) to be not suitable (N). The study concluded that the soil of the area is affected with salinity and low soil nutrients which can be control by proper management, it recommend for proper use of fertilizer (organic and inorganic).