Land suitability assessment for mango production in Kitui County, Kenya

Mango remains an important tropical and sub-tropical crop, ranking as the sixth most cultivated and popularacross the globe. Despite  thriving in many tropical and sub-tropical areas, regions previously dedicated to mango cultivation are undergoing a shift to different  agricultural pursuits due to a lack of sustainable mangooutput. Due to the spatial variability of factors affecting production, not all areas are suitable for mango production in Kenya. This study aims to develop a Geographic Information System(GIS)and Analytical Hierarchy  Process (AHP) technique-based approaches for land suitability assessment for mango growing in Kitui County,Kenya.Thematic maps of all  variables (Rainfall, temperature, soils, slope, rivers, land use/land cover, and roads) affecting mango growing were developed using  GIS. The maps were evaluatedin accordance with the published ideal parameter value ranges for mango production and these  evaluationsserved as a basis for allocating weights to the thematic layers with respect to mango production. Thereafter,the weighted  overlay maps of the thematic layers (ArcGIS) were used to develop the land suitability map. The map was categorized into four classes  based on mango production suitability namely: highly suitable, moderately suitable, marginally suitable, and not suitable. Results show  that 79.8 % of the study area is highly suitable for mango production, 1.1 % moderately suitable, 13.9 % marginally suitable, and 5.2 % is  not suitable for mango production. This suggests that a significant portion of the study region is favorable for mango cultivation, with  limited sections in the study area that are only moderately or completely unsuited for mango cultivation. The socio-economic factors  highly ranked by farmers to be useful for mango production are roads. These results provide useful insights to policy makers, enabling  them make informed decisions on how to decrease land degradation and to assess sustainable landuse, especially for mango production.