Fitness Evaluation of west Azerbaijan Province Lands for Canola Cultivation Based on Multi Criteria Decision Making in GIS Environment

Canola after soybean and oil palm is the world third leading oilseed by producing 15 percent of the global plant oil. Climate, topography and lands fitness are of most important environmental factors on which, the crop production capability in a region depends. By evaluating the lands fitness based on these criteria, has been tried in this study to detect the suitable lands for canola cultivation in west Azerbaijan province. In the present study, the climatological data such as temperature, precipitation, growth degree day, relative humidity, freezing days, sunshine hours were collected from the west Azerbaijan province synoptic and rain gauge stations (since their installation till 1387) associated with the phonologic stages of canola growth. In addition to the climatological data, the ones on earth resources like topographic layers, lands capability, soil depth and lands use were analyzed focusing on the climatological and ecological needs of canola. After generalizing the data and processing the using GIS, their corresponding information layers were derived. In order to prioritize and assess the criteria and information layers and to determine their rate, the multi criteria decision method (MCDM) was employed based on Analytical hierarchy process(AHP). Then, by rating the provided layers based on the criteria and the considered model, overlapping and special analysis of the layers were done in GIS environmental and the final land evaluation layer for canola cultivation was produced. Based on the obtained results, the province lands were divided into four categories of highly suitable(%15.2), suitable(%52.1) , moderate(%25.4) and weak(%7.3). lands accounting for the environmental and climatologocal potential for canola cultivation.