Land suitability assessment for millets and pulses cultivation using hybrid approaches TRFN-AHP, remote sensing, and GIS

Land suitability assessment is essential for improving agricultural productivity and supporting sustainable land management, particularly in regions where agriculture is the major livelihood source. In the study area, nearly 70% of the population depends on agriculture, with millets and pulses being the dominant crops. Therefore, identifying suitability cultivation zones is important for sustainable agricultural planning and resource management. The present study aims to evaluate Land Suitability Zone (LSZ) for millets and pulses cultivation using hybrid approaches Trapezoidal Fuzzy Analytical Hierarchy Process (TRFN-AHP), remote sensing, and Geographic Information System (GIS). To evaluate millets and pulses cultivation, several key parameters were analyzed, including Annual Rainfall (R), Soil Texture (ST), ph, Nitrogen (N), Organic Carbon (OC), Soil Moisture (SM), Max Temperature (T), Depth of Water Table (DL), Actual Evapotranspiration (EVT), Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI), Humidity (H) and Elevation (E), were selected based on previous studies. The parameter weights were determined using the TRFN-AHP method. The LSZ results for millets cultivation were classified into very less (16.59%), less (27.75%), moderately (22.23%), high (20.87%), and very high suitability zones (12.55%). Similarly, the LSZ results for pulses cultivation were categorized into very less (17.23%), less (28.15%), moderately (21.71%), high (19.96%), and very high suitability zones (12.93%). The land suitability index for millets and pulses cultivation were validated using receiver operating characteristic curve. The area under curve value is 0.96 for millets and 0.86 for pulses, indicating excellent and very good prediction accuracy, respectively. The results demonstrate that the hybrid approaches of TRFN-AHP, remote sensing, and GIS provides a reliable and effective framework for land suitability assessment and can support sustainable agricultural planning and crop management strategies.