A GIS-based Logic Scoring of Preference method for evaluation of land capability and suitability for agriculture

The growth of urban areas and industrial intensification has contributed to a reduction in valuable agricultural lands and to various environmental impacts including climate change. This reduction in agricultural land severely impacts food production and food security. In order to effectively address this issue, spatial analytical and optimization methods based on evaluating multiple spatial criteria are needed to evaluate the capability and suitability of available lands for current and future food production. The objective of this study is to implement the GIS-based Logic Scoring of Preference (LSP) method as an improved method of multicriteria decision making for evaluating areas suitable for agriculture. Evaluation criteria included soil, topographic, climatic, economic, land use and accessibility attributes. The LSP method allows for the stepwise aggregation of a large number of inputs to represent the full range of human decision logic without losing weighted significance of the inputs. Geospatial datasets from Boulder County, Colorado, USA provides the context to demonstrate the LSP method for agricultural land capability and land suitability assessment. The LSP method uses a large number of inputs and suitability functions integrated into the development of LSP aggregation structures to represent the full range of human decision-making logic and to evaluate decision-making objectives. The method incorporates a larger number of criterion inputs, represents the full range of human decision-making, and produces realistic agricultural land capability and suitability maps thereby making it an effective tool for integrated regional land-use planning.