Agricultural activities, as a foundation of growth and development and part of the rural development process, guarantee the economic life of many villages in the country. However, in recent years, other products' water scarcity and resource limitations have affected these activities. This issue has severely challenged the sustainability and life of rural settlements.
In this regard, organizing and developing an optimal cropping pattern is necessary to achieve the goals of sustainable agricultural and rural development in Iran. To achieve this goal, the cultivation of crops must be commensurate with the capabilities of production resources, especially water resources. Therefore, determining the appropriate spatial distribution of agricultural lands for the cultivation of various crops is one of the primary foundations for implementing optimal cropping pattern. Accordingly, the present study seeks to identify suitable spatial zoning for wheat and barley cultivation as the main crops in agricultural lands in traditional Lenjanat regions, which are exposed to a growing water crisis. According to the main purpose of the research, the data obtained from spatial distribution maps of current cropping patterns and spatial distribution of suitable lands for crop cultivation. This study prepared the suitability maps of the major agricultural products at a distance of 10 km on both sides of Zayandeh rud River in Lenjanat region using multi-criteria decision-making methods.
Thus, the agronomic-ecological needs of the two major crops in the area (wheat and barley) were determined, and a standard map for each crop was classified using ArcGIS software. Then, the digital layers were combined by allocating the weight obtained from the Analytical Hierarchy Process and the Simple Additive Weighting method. Finally, talent assessment and land zoning was performed in four categories from unsuitable to very suitable for cultivating wheat and barley crops.
The results of the land suitability map showed that 90.6% of the agricultural lands in the study area are very suitable and relatively suitable for the cultivation of the wheat crop. As for barley cultivation, a large part of the area, equal to 30635.3 hectares (more than 91%), is very suitable and relatively suitable. The northern and eastern regions, located in Falavarjan county and the north part of Mobarakeh county, are the most suitable areas for wheat cultivation. The results of this evaluation can be used in the spatial distribution of the optimal cropping pattern to select a suitable cultivation site for these two crops and other existing and alternative crops.