An Application of GIS-Based Multi-Criteria Decision Making Approach for Land Evaluation and Suitability Mapping for Rice Cultivation in Oye-Ekiti, Nigeria

This study adopted a GIS-based multi-criteria decision approach in mapping the inherent qualities and potentials of land peculiar to rice cultivation in Oye-Ekiti. FAO framework was used as a guide in selecting variables for the land evaluation. An Analytical Hierarchical Process was used to assign weights to the selected factors with respect to their relative importance, while pairwise comparison was used to rank the factors. The priority generated was used to assign weights in ArcGIS 10.5 weighted overlay toolset in spatial analyst tool. The resulting weights are based on the principal eigenvector of the decision matrix. From the priority value derived from the pairwise comparison result, the criteria were reclassified according to their suitability level and weighted overlay toolset was used to merge the criteria from which the results were obtained. The study area was classified into three categories based on rice cultivation suitability, namely: Highly suitable-S1, moderately suitable-S2, marginally suitable- S3. The result indicates that that 18% (79.925 sq.km) of the total land area is highly suitable for cultivating rice, 70% (326.019 sq.km) is moderately suitable while 12% (57.725 sq.km) is marginally suitable. The study is a GIS-based multi-criteria decision-making approach in selecting the best rice cultivation site.