The expansion of agricultural land use in Borneo, particularly in the Sarawak state of Malaysia, has brought several sustainability challenges, such as deforestation, peatland conversion and monoculture diversity. A quarter of the Sarawak state land consisting of primary forest was converted into agricultural land. Therefore, the study was aimed to evaluate the land use suitability for agricultural activities at the Kabuloh region in Miri, the Northern area of Sarawak, Malaysia. Kabuloh region was chosen as the study site because the region is an active agricultural land and approximately 40% of the total area are covered by oil palm plantation, which shall be planned for a long term sustainable agricultural development. The suitability assessment was conducted using Geographic Information System (GIS), and multiple criteria decision-making methods (MCDM) by assessing and interpreting data, such as soil type, slope gradient, agricultural land use capability, and distance to infrastructures. The criteria weightage was identified by applying the Fuzzy Analytic Hierarchy Process (FAHP) method. The analysis result showed that five percentage of the land area is highly suitable, forty-two percentage is moderately suitable, thirty-three percentage is marginally suitable, nineteen percentage is currently not suitable, and one percentage is permanently not suitable for agriculture. The significant shortcomings of the unsuitable land are steep slope and unfavourable soil type. The result proved that sago, paddy, and coconut could be alternative crops besides the existing active development in oil palm plantation in the Kabuloh region.

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A GIS-Based Assessment of Agricultural Land Use Suitability for Local Crops: A Case Study at Kabuloh Region in Miri, Sarawak

  • Tay Ai Chen,
  • Erik Ngoi Yiew Tuang,
  • Vera Loo Hui,
  • Sung Aun Naa,
  • Shariah Umar

摘要

The expansion of agricultural land use in Borneo, particularly in the Sarawak state of Malaysia, has brought several sustainability challenges, such as deforestation, peatland conversion and monoculture diversity. A quarter of the Sarawak state land consisting of primary forest was converted into agricultural land. Therefore, the study was aimed to evaluate the land use suitability for agricultural activities at the Kabuloh region in Miri, the Northern area of Sarawak, Malaysia. Kabuloh region was chosen as the study site because the region is an active agricultural land and approximately 40% of the total area are covered by oil palm plantation, which shall be planned for a long term sustainable agricultural development. The suitability assessment was conducted using Geographic Information System (GIS), and multiple criteria decision-making methods (MCDM) by assessing and interpreting data, such as soil type, slope gradient, agricultural land use capability, and distance to infrastructures. The criteria weightage was identified by applying the Fuzzy Analytic Hierarchy Process (FAHP) method. The analysis result showed that five percentage of the land area is highly suitable, forty-two percentage is moderately suitable, thirty-three percentage is marginally suitable, nineteen percentage is currently not suitable, and one percentage is permanently not suitable for agriculture. The significant shortcomings of the unsuitable land are steep slope and unfavourable soil type. The result proved that sago, paddy, and coconut could be alternative crops besides the existing active development in oil palm plantation in the Kabuloh region.