A Novel Geospatial‐based Coupled Multi‐Criteria Decision‐Making Techniques (E‐PROMETHEE‐II) for Identifying Potential Land Areas for Surface Irrigation in Koch Bihar District, West Bengal, India

ABSTRACT Surface irrigation is vital for maintaining agricultural productivity and preventing regional food insecurity. The current study aims to identify potential surface irrigation sites in the Koch Bihar district via an innovative geospatial‐based E‐PROMETHEE II multi‐criteria decision‐making (MCDM) technique. Fourteen factors, including distance from water bodies, river density, rainfall, temperature, evapotranspiration, the normalized difference vegetation index (NDWI), the soil moisture index, elevation, slope, aspect, soil properties, groundwater depth and land use/land cover, were selected for analysis, with a multicollinearity test ensuring their validity. The E‐PROMETHEE II method was used to create a suitability map for surface irrigation, benchmarked against the analytical hierarchical process (AHP) method. The results highlighted highly suitable zones for irrigation, notably in the Cooch Behar I, Dinhata I, Tufanganj I, Mathabhanga II, and parts of the Tufanganj II blocks. Validation via receiver operating characteristic (ROC) and area under the curve (AUC) analyses demonstrated AUC values exceeding 0.70 for all the models, underscoring their reliability. E‐PROMETHEE II (AUC = 0.889) emerged as the top‐performing method, trailed by the AHP (AUC = 0.728). These findings will facilitate the implementation of new surface irrigation systems in the study area.