Identification & Mapping of Mustard Cultivation Sites Using a Multi Criteria Evaluation Approach (MCEA) for Kamrup District of Assam, India

Abstract

Land suitability analysis is a pre requisite to achieve optimum utilization of available land resources for sustainable agricultural management. One of the most important agriculture related issues in the state of Assam is to improve the agricultural output with an efficient use of available land resources. Agriculture is the prime economic activity for most of the people of Assam but the overall production figures for different agricultural crops are still stands at a notably lower level compared to the national average. The aim of the present study is to assess the physical land suitability level for Mustard crop using a Multi-Criteria Evaluation (MCE) method with the help of GIS & Remote sensing tool. The existing pattern of physiographic, meteorological and soil based components were thoroughly considered for the identification & mapping of mustard cultivation sites of Kamrup district with the help of geospatial tool. Present Landuse/Land cover scenario of the study area highlights that although a substantial portion out of the total geographical area falls under agricultural landuse category but it has distinctly been noticed that a major shrunk of future suitable area are till unutilized. The landuse/land cover statistics of the area shows that the Mustard cultivation is confined to only 178.82 sq.km area which shows a huge possibility of further increase in Mustard cultivation sites in coming years. “Overlay analysis†method in GIS based environment was applied to prepare an “Index model†for multi criteria analysis of different natural and soil parameters. Finally, the results show that mustard cultivation sites are mainly concentrated only in the plain areas and in the river adjacent fertile tracts adjacent to river Brahmaputra and its tributaries.