Abstract

Geographic Information System (GIS) based Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) model has been used to assess land suitability for sustainable agricultural planning around the Kolaghat Thermal Power Plant (KTPP) in the district Purba Medinipur, West Bengal, India. For judging crop potentiality, pair-wise comparisons between the influential factors in AHP have shown the superiority of the soil chemical properties with the highest relative weight of rainfall (0.171738), organic carbon (0.154899) and soil pH (0.123876) for determination of sesame suitability. The lowest weight allocated to flood is 0.020909 and 0.35716 for average minimum temperature. Consistency Ratio (CR) has been calculated and it is < 0.1 which is 0.097875 for all factors which indicates the correctness of the AHP model. In reality, sesame is cultivated in 5.12% area of total area of Kolaghat whereas GIS based AHP model suggests 21.68% area is suitable for economic cultivation of sesame. Moderately suitable areas (78.32%) for sesame need improvement of some soil properties such as soil pH and organic carbon. People are cultivating comparatively in very less area with marginally suitable crops which jeopardize their socio-economic status. GIS based AHP evaluation promotes agricultural and environmental sustainability around the coal-fired thermal power plant.

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