GIS Based Land Suitability Assessment for German Chamomile Production

K. Abdollahi, M. Bahrami, A. R. Golparvar, A. Ghasemi Pirbalouti

Abstract: German chamomile (Matricaria chamomilla L.) is the most important medicinal herb and new crop. Chamomile crop has recently been exploited to boost cultivation area in Iran. The potential of land for agricultural use is determined by an evaluation of agro-ecological variables. Soil, climate and topographical environmental components are import agro-ecological variables. Evaluation of ecological variables is usually a first step in land use analysis. Geographic Information System (GIS) was used to identify suitable areas for chamomile production in north of Khuzestan province, Iran. Relevant environment-components such as soil chemical characteristics (pH, EC and organic matter), climate factors (temperature and precipitation) and topography (DEM ) at different spatial and temporal resolutions were considered. The results of maps this study by ILWIS (version academic 3.0) identified that 0%, 1.5% (15868.35 ha), 32.7% (345930 ha) and 65.8% (696091.6 ha) of land have currently highly suitable (S1), moderately suitable (S2) and marginally suitable (S3) and not suitable (N) for chamomile crop production in north of Khuzestan, respectively.

Keywords: Ecological variables; German Chamomile; GIS; suitable area

Date published: 2019-10-01