Published Paper Details:

Agricultural crop land suitability assessment of Thanjavur District is the primary objective of this study. In the present study, the remote sensing and geographic information system (GIS) techniques are utilized to assess the land type suitable for crops production. The various land capability parameters are chosen such as topographic wetness index (TWI), land use and land cover (LULC), soil, drainage density, slope, aspect and geology. All these factors determine the suitability of a given area for a particular type of crop cultivation. The various agricultural crop produce in Thanjavur district are paddy, maize, wheat, potato, and oilseed etc. All the parameters were prepared and integrated with the help of weighted overlay analysis in ArcGIS software. The final suitability maps are categorized into five classes such as not suitable zone, poorly suitable zone, moderate suitable zone, highly suitable zone and Very high suitable zone. The not suitable zone cover 27 sq.km (1%), poorly suitable zone covers 292 sq.km (8%), moderately suitable zone covers 1196 sq.km (32%), highly suitable zone covers 1596 sq.km (43%) and very high suitable zone covers 624 sq.km (17%). The result revealed that only 17% of Thanjavur district falls under very high suitability class, so it is necessary to improve the soil quality parameters to sustainable agricultural practices in the study area.