AHP based land suitability assessment for cotton and soybean: A case study in Marathwada region, Maharashtra

Soil suitability analysis was carried out for cotton and soybean crops in Boldagaon watershed, Hingoli district, Maharashtra using AHP multicriteria analysis. The factors affecting and weightage were decided using the expert opinion and literatures. The factors affecting cotton are soil depth, texture, slope, AWC, organic carbon, pH, CaCO3 and for soybean are slope, texture, slope, AWC, pH and organic carbon. Pairwise comparison matrix (PWCM) was created based on the relative importance between two parameters for determining the parameter weights and maps were prepared by integrating all thematic maps with weighted overlay analysis (WOA) technique. The study concluded that almost 74 percent of the area is suitable for both crops. The decline in cotton acreage may be due to high cost of cultivation, labour intensively, insect pest infestation, fluctuating market, long duration of crop, etc. On the other hand, the soybean area increased due to a shorter crop yield, less infestation of disease and pests, and lower cost of cultivation.