Geographical Information System Based Model of Land Suitability for Good Yield of Rice in Prachuap Khiri Khan Province, Thailand
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Sci., Tech. and Dev., 31 (1): 1-9, 2012 GEOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION SYSTEM BASED MODEL OF LAND SUITABILITY FOR GOOD YIELD OF RICE IN PRACHUAP KHIRI KHAN PROVINCE, THAILAND WALAYAT HUSSAIN*1, OSAMA SOHAIB1, AFTAB AHMED2 AND MUHAMMAD QASIM KHAN2 1Department of Computer Science, Balochistan University of I.T, Engineering and Management Science, Quetta, Pakistan. 2Faculty of Information and Communication Technology, Balochistan University of I.T, Engineering and Management Science, Quetta, Pakistan. Abstract Correct assessment of land is a major issue in agricultural sector to use possible capability of any land, to raise cultivation and production of rice. Geographical Information System (GIS) provides broad techniques for suitable land classifications. This study is GIS based on land suitability analysis for rice farming in Prachuap Khiri Khan Province, Thailand, where the main livelihood of people is rice farming. This analysis was conducted considering the relationship of rice production with various data layers of elevation, slope, soil pH, rainfall, fertilizer use and land use. ArcView GIS 3.2 software is used to consider each layer according to related data. To weigh every coefficient, ranking techniques are used. It was based on determining correlation of rice production and these variables. This analysis showed a positive correlation with these variables in varying degrees depending on the magnitude and quality of these factors. By combining both data layers of GIS and weighted linear combination, various suitable lands have been developed for cultivation of rice. Integrated suitable assessment map and current land were compared to find suitable land in Prachuap Khiri Khan Province of Thailand. As a result of this comparison, we get a land which is suitable for optimum utilization for rice production in Prachuap Khiri Khan Province. Keywords: Land evaluation, land suitability, rice production, GIS, suitability analysis, ArcView. 1. Introduction Currently, latest technologies like GIS and Rice is the staple food of about half of the satellite remote sensing are used for this purpose. world population. In most of the Asian countries, By digitally encoding already available maps, it ranks as the main agricultural production. Rice spatial database is to be formed (Mongkolsawat et is considered to be highly productive export crop al., 1997; Zhou et al., 2005). The main theme of in Thailand, that’s why rice is cultivated over this study is to create spatial model for more than 60% of cultivated land. Government’s determining suitable land for cultivation and new concept has created a tendency of firm production of rice by GIS. expansion in Thailand’s farming division 2. Background (Thailand’s Rice Strategy, 2004-2005). As a part of the effort for developing a GIS Investors in large numbers are interested to based land suitability for rice production process identify the best suitable place for rice production in Thailand; Prachuap Khiri Khan province, and, in Thailand research is being done in land located in the central part of the Thailand classification for last two decades. There are two (province code=29), has been selected as the categories of land which are used for study area for further analysis. This study aims to classifications: find suitable land for rice production with respect · Land which is capable for crop, to related variables through a model. · Land suitable for production of rice. *Author for correspondence E-mail: [email protected] 2 WALAYAT HUSSAIN ET AL Prachuap Khiri Khan is located in the central in South, it connects with Chumporn, in the East part of Thailand and 281 km far away from the is the bay of Thailand and in the West is Capital. The province has 8 districts and a sub- Mayanmar (Figure 1). district. In the north, it touches Phetchaburi, and (a) (b) Figure 1: (a) Map of Thailand highlighting Prachuap Khiri Khan province, (b) Districts of the province. In Prachuap Khiri Khan province, agriculture · To find relationship between rice yield and is the main source of livelihood for the people. use of fertilizer. They cultivate rice on slope lands, in addition to The final output is a composite map of cultivating lowland paddy in small valleys. Due favorable lands for good yield of rice in Prachuap to increase in population density and/or economic Khiri Khan province. necessity, unused arable lands have already become scarce in many parts of the mountainous 3. Used data layers area of Prachuap Khiri Khan. However, there is a Spatial variability of rice production often necessity to determine the land suitability based needs to be evaluated due to different topographic on a scientific analysis in order to ensure the situations, condition of soil and weather situation long-term sustainability of the rice production of within a specific region. Topography of the land the area. plays a major role in selecting a land for paddy GIS based land suitability model for rice cultivation. Traditionally, the preference has been production prepared for the Prachuap Khiri Khan given for flat lands as they provide a favorable province is basically focused on the relationship environment for this high-water-consuming plant. of rice yield with various parameters as follows. However, increasing demand for the rice has led to use of new methods for cultivation even on · To find relationship between rice yield and higher elevations of the land. In this situation, it is elevation, important to concern about the topography · To find relationship between rice yield and parameters such as slope and elevation of the land aspect, when selecting a land suitable for rice production. · To find the relationship between rice yield In addition, low inherent nutrient content of the and slope, soil that affect for the rice production needs to be GIS BASED MODEL OF LAND SUITABILITY FOR GOOD YIELD OF RICE IN PRACHUAP KHIRI KHAN PROVINCE 3 overcome by application of fertilizer. Fertilizer They selected Seoni district. They combined both response on rice yield is an important aspect to be soil site factors and climate conditions for every considered when identifying the suitable areas for crop. FCC and NPK can be used for concerning rice production. yield response with combined nutrient Literature Review management for different cropping systems. Evaluating any land is the process of Boateng (2005) used Geographical assessment between type of land and its possible Information System for spatial entry for the best needs and requirements. Land-use planning is the suitable place for rice production focusing on organized valuation of land, options for the use of Ghana. He observed that the proportion of very land and economic situations, so that to choose suitable rice production area is twice from middle and accept the best available land option (FAO, ripened variety to early ripened variety, and from 1996). early ripened variety to very early ripened variety. He found that for very suitable rice production Mongkolsawat et al. (1997) used Global area, the land area enhanced to fifty percent, for information system for evaluating land suitability middle ripened variety the yield range from for rice production. They analyzed that by spatial eighteen to twenty three percent. The best suitable modeling suitability of any land can be land for rice production in Ghana is one which determined with better precision, furthermore rice has a rice production from twenty six to forty yield can be improved by increasing component eight percent. of modeling input. Bhagat et al. (2009) selected different factors Charuppat (2002) adopted global information for checking land suitability for cereal system and developed spatial model to assess the production, like weather condition, type of soil best suitable land. He has observed that the and land-use, using Geographical Information proposed system gave effective results for the System in Himachal Pradesh. It was observed by task. them that over eighty five percent of cultivated Samanta et al. (2011) selected Morobe land was situated in low hilly subtropical area and province situated in Papua New Guinea for their middle hilly sub-humid area. study. They used spatial multicultural decision Forkuo and Nketia (2011) developed shared approach. They chose 12 factors as input dataset. geodatabase for land suitability of citrus, cassava They observed that after cross checking the and palm oil. They developed choropleth map for output with Geobook data set, the results were visual understanding of suitable land. They used favorable. both ArcGIS and SQL server as a database. Jun et al. (2010) selected the Yellow River Different attributes like slop, pH value, Delta to identify the best land resources in the temperature, etc. were selected. They have seen project of Three Network Greening. They that by map, which they have generated, can be combined different factors like type of soil, level got efficient, effective and useful results. of underwater, etc., and based on these factors, Mokarram et al. (2007) have selected eight they classified the area into eight categories. parameters of soil like texture, humidity, CEC, Based on the results, all the areas which are non- ESP, Gypsum, pH value, CaCO and landscape. green but suitable for grass and forest are 3 They used coefficient of Kappa for comparing recognized and allotted in proper route. These are parametric method and Fuzzy theory and for then combined with Three Network Greening suggesting better output. They have seen that standards for classification of these lands. Fuzzy method has better result. Kuria et al. (2011) evaluated Tana delta as the best suitable place for rice production. They 4. Methodology selected the east Tana river for their study. They After obtaining relevant data layers, the data developed land suitability rating model using has been processed using ARC View. Available ArcGIS building techniques, and from that they data were found for central part of Thailand. The classified land in four categories. technique and methodology is made to assess Bobade et al.