Land Suitability Assessment for Apple (Malus domestica) Production in Sentele Watershed in Hadiya Zone, Southern Ethiopia

Apple (Malus domestica) is cultivated in Southern Ethiopia. However, the crop is being grown in without affirming the suitability of the land for its cultivation. Therefore, this research was conducted to assess the suitability of the land of Sentele Watershed for apple production in Southern Ethiopia. Integrating GIS and analytic hierarchy process (AHP) method, which is widely used in multi-criteria decision-making for tackling multi-attribute decision-making problems in real situations, was used in this study. In the application techniques, most attributes that determine apple growth, climate, edaphic, topography, and current land use/land cover were combined. In determining the weights of the attributes, the opinions of experts and experienced apple orchard workers were considered, and an agricultural land suitability map was produced as highly suitable, moderately suitable, marginally suitable, and least suitable. The methodology was based on the land evaluation developed by FAO (1976) that suggests biophysical diagnostic factors, which most strongly influenced the cultivation of apples. Criteria were defined, background information was gathered, and a raster surface was created. The layers are reclassified, weighed, and then the output layers are overlaid with the background information such as a map of topography to see the best potential sites and to prepare the final suitability map. The final apple suitability map showed that only 2.2% of the total land is highly suitable, 32% is moderately suitable, and 52.1% is marginally suitable, and it requires detailed investigation and careful decision over other land uses to invest in it. 13.7% is the least suitable for apple cultivation. It is concluded that about 34% of the total land of the study area is suitable for apple production, and about 66% is unsuitable. The results imply that it is necessary to take improvement measures such as irrigation, species selection, removing leaves (defoliation), and appropriate land-use planning in most of the land of the watershed before investing in apple cultivation and production, and it is necessary to expand apple production in the future only in areas that are highly and moderately suitable for producing the crop in the study area.