Land Suitability Identification for a Production Forest through GIS Techniques  N D K Dayawansa Department of Agricultural Engineering, Faculty of Agriculture, University of Peradeniya Peradeniya, Sri Lanka Tel: +94-777801712, Fax: +94-8-387216 Email: dammid@pdn.ac.lk G K Ekanayake Abstract The main aim of this study was to identify the suitable land parcels for a production forest. Production forest is a forest plantation that has been specifically planted on economical objectives. In this study, the land suitability analysis has been carried out to identify suitable areas within the University of Peradeniya, Sri Lanka for a production forest. Climate, slope, soil, topography, vegetation, accessibility were considered as important factors in identifying the suitability. In this study, climate and soils were considered as homogenous throughout the study area. The required spatial layers were obtained from existing topographic map sheets of 1:10000 scale and the land use/ cover map of the area of 1:10000 scale. The spatial layers were digitised and incorporated into the Geographical Information System environment. Criteria for suitability have been identified as the areas having 30 –60% land slope, areas with non permanent land use, good accessibility (at least 50 meters from an existing road) and the areas away from fire hazards since sporadic incidences of fire are reported in the area. The digital layers were reclassified and given weightings to be analysed further. Finally, suitability map was prepared with three suitability categories namely, suitable, moderately suitable and not suitable. According to the final suitability map, 5.35ha of land is under highly suitable category and 0.65 ha of land is under moderately suitable category. The majority of the land (68.5ha) is not suitable according to the given criteria. It is recommended that a field checking should be carried out in suitable and moderately suitable land areas for further verification before implementing any aforestation activity. |