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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Sustain. Food Syst.
Sec. Water-Smart Food Production
Volume 8 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/fsufs.2024.1469474

An integrated geospatial approach and the factors required to delineate irrigation suitability areas

Provisionally accepted
Luxon Nhamo Luxon Nhamo 1*James Magidi James Magidi 2Sylvester Mpandeli Sylvester Mpandeli 1Stanley Liphadzi Stanley Liphadzi 1Tafadzwanashe Mabhaudhi Tafadzwanashe Mabhaudhi 3
  • 1 Water Research Commission, Pretoria, South Africa
  • 2 Tshwane University of Technology, Pretoria, South Africa
  • 3 London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, London, United Kingdom

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    Most emerging economies rely on agriculture, yet over 90% of the sector remains rainfed, which is characterised by low productivity and is highly susceptible to climate change. The focus now is to increase the irrigated area to boost crop-water productivity under climate change. However, there is varied information on actually irrigated areas and no consensus on the factors that should be used to delineate areas suitable for irrigation. This study defined the factors required to delineate areas suitable for irrigation, including rainfall, landuse, closeness to waterbodies, soil characteristics, and groundwater depth. These physical factors were used to delineate irrigation suitability areas in Monze District, Zambia, applying an integrated geospatial technique and the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP), a multi-criteria decision method, in ArcGIS. Socio-economic factors were excluded in this instance as they are only ideal for indicating optimal areas to initiate irrigation projects under a set of given conditions, including crop-specific conditions. Accuracy was assessed by overlaying field points of currently irrigated lands obtained during fieldwork on geospatially delineated irrigation suitability areas created in this study. All the fieldwork points matched the modelled irrigation suitability areas, providing the best possible accuracy of 100%. However, there are vast lands that were also mapped as suitable but are not being irrigated, highlighting the underutilisation of the irrigation potential in the study area. The results are significant for policy decisions on irrigation expansion and development.

    Keywords: Land suitability, Irrigation potential, Multi-criteria decision, crop productivity, Drought risk reduction, adaptation, Food and water security, sustainable agriculture

    Received: 23 Jul 2024; Accepted: 30 Nov 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Nhamo, Magidi, Mpandeli, Liphadzi and Mabhaudhi. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: Luxon Nhamo, Water Research Commission, Pretoria, South Africa

    Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.