Land Suitability Assessment of Soils Using Geographic Information System in the Semi-Arid Area of Tunisia

With the widespread use of remote sensing and geographic information systems (GIS), mapping agricultural land suitability is becoming increasingly relevant. The main objective of this study was to elaborate and assess soil suitability maps for different rain-fed and irrigated crops. The study was conducted in the north-east area of Tunisia, and three speculations were adopted (cereals, arboriculture, and vegetables crops) in both rain-fed and irrigated conditions. Arithmetic multiplication methods were used based on Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) classification based on Free and Open Source Geographic Information System (QGIS) tools and soil pedological properties, slope, elevation, and climatic data. Overall, regardless of rain-fed or irrigated conditions, results showed that the study area soils were particularly suitable (S1) for cereals crops and marginal suitable (S3) for arboriculture crops with 20, 44, and 23.71%, respectively. More particular, we registered an improvement of soil land suitability under irrigated conditions for cereals with 28.63%. The findings indicated that using the GIS system, the soil in the study area is more suitable for cereals and then for arboriculture under irrigated conditions, which requires some improvement in use strategies and a good management of the soil resources.