Evaluating land suitability for Rhus coriaria L. (Sumac) by habitat suitability model

Abstract

The cultivation of Rhus coriaria has become necessary to preserve their wild populations. To be competitive in the international market, it is important to develop an efficient production chain to reduce costs and improve the quality of the products. The main objective of this study is to provide a method to determine the suitable areas to develop the R. coriaria cultivation with a case study in Gonabad County of Iran. A habitat suitability model (HSM) was applied to survey the distribution of R. coriaria and to identify the best areas the growing of its. Three different main criteria including environmental suitability, agronomic suitability, and social-economical suitability selected for the HSM. Then, each of the three main criteria and their multi-specific indicator was defined in Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) and the weights of them were calculated by pairwise comparison matrix. In the next stage, the weights are applied to their layers such as hypsometry, slope, slope aspect, mean annual precipitation, mean annual temperature, soil texture, landuse, water resource type, water resource quality and quantity, road network, and land ownership as roaster layers. The results of the HSM showed a weighted map of land suitability for the R. coriaria that included the maximum and minimum potential of areas for its planting. Based on these results, the areas with the highest suitability for the R. coriaria are strictly associated with precipitation, soil texture, and water resources type.