International Journal of Ecology

Research Article

Identification of Suitable Land for Livestock Production Using GIS-Based Multicriteria Decision Analysis and Remote Sensing in the Bale Lowlands, Ethiopia

Table 1

Rangeland evaluation criteria and their suitability classes for cattle, sheep, goat, and camel.


Livestock category	Criteria	Range of suitability
Livestock category	Criteria	S1	S2	S3	N1

Cattle	LULC	GL	BL, SL	FL	FOR, SETT
	Rainfall (mm)	>800	500–800	300–500	<300
	Water accessibility (km)	<8	8–15	15–20	>20
	Slope (%)	0–8	8–16	16–25	>25
	Soil types	VRe, CLp, VRk	CLh, CMx, LPq, LPe, GYh, LPk, FLe, LP, GYp	ARb, CMe, CMx, LVx, NTh, CM

Sheep	LULC	GL	BL, SL	FL	FOR, SETT
	Rainfall (mm)	>800	500–800	300–500	<300
	Water accessibility (km)	<5	5–7	7–10	>10
	Slope (%)	0–16	16–30	30–40	>40
	Soil types	CLh	CMx, ARb, CMe, VRe, CLp, GYh, VRk, LVx, NTh, CM	LPq, LPe, LPk, FLe, LP, GYp

Goat	LULC	SL	GL, BL	FL	FOR, SET
	Rainfall (mm)	600–800	400–600	250–400, >800	<250
	Water accessibility (km)	<5	5–7	7–10	>10
	Slope (%)	0–16	16–35	35–50	>50
	Soil types	CMe, CMx, CM	CLh, ARb, LPq, LPe, VRe, CLp, Gyh, LPk, VRk, LVx, NTh, FLe, Lp, GYp

Camel	LULC	SL	GL, BL	FL	FOR, SET
	Rainfall (mm)	450–700	350–450	200–350	<200,>700
	Water accessibility (km)	<10	10–20	20–25	>25
	Slope (%)	0–8	8–16	16–25	>25
	Soil types	CMe, CMx, CM	CLh, ARb, LPq, LPe, VRe, CLp, Gyh, LPk, VRk, LVx, NTh, FLe, Lp, GYp

SL: shrub land, GL: grassland, BL: bushland, FL: farmland, FOR: forest, SET: settlement; CMe: Eutric cambisols, CMx: Chromic Cambisols, CM: Cambisols, CLh: Happlic Calcisols, ARb: Cambic Arenosols, LPq: Lithic Leptosols, LPe: Eutric Leptosols, VRe: Eutric Vertisols, CLp: Petric Calcisols, GYh: Haplic Gypsisols, LPk:Rendizic Lpeptosols, VRk: Calcic Vertisols, LVx: Chromic luvisols, NTh: Haplic Nitosols, FLe: Eutric Fluvisols, Lp: Lpeptosols, and Gyp: Petric gypsisols