Delineation of suitable areas for crops using a Multi-Criteria Evaluation approach and land use/cover mapping: a case study in Central Mexico

The application of a Multi-Criteria Evaluation (MCE) approach to identify suitable areas for the production of maize and potato crops in Central Mexico is presented. Maize and potato are the most important crops in the Rural Development District of Toluca (RDDT). Climate, relief and soil databases were used to integrate GIS raster coverages. Relevant criteria for crops and suitability levels were defined. This information was used to obtain the criteria maps, which in turn were used as input into the MCE algorithm. Several decision support procedures in the Idrisi GIS environment were applied to obtain the suitability maps for each crop. A 1996 Landsat TM image was processed using GIS capabilities by means of a supervised classification to obtain a land use/cover map. These land use/cover and the suitability maps were crossing to identify differences and similarities between the present land use in the suitable areas for the maize and potato crops.