The land suitability evaluation was a spatial excercise to generate biophysical suitability for cropping systems on judging soil - climate - landscape systems and linked with to the individual polygons of (1 : 25 000 scale) soil map available for Pulivendula tehsil. Aridity is a recurring phenomena with serious economic loss in Pulivendula of Kadapa district, Andhra Pradesh where the rainfed groundnut yields are historically less than 400 kg/ha. The soil map with 43 soil series association showed that 38% of area is under hills and ridges with soil cover of inceptisols (46%), vertisols (13%), alfisols (5%) and entisols (4%) having slightly to moderately alkaline with low salt concentration (mean EC <0.5 dSm-1), high ESP (> 7.61% in case of soils on shale) and moderately deep (mean of 97.81cm) to very deep as compared to soils on quartzite (mean of 30.75 cm). These soils were evaluated as weakly susceptible to water erosion covering 29037 hectares (K < 0.20). The appraisal of suitable lands for groundnut showed that 42% of total cropped area is moderately suitable but extensively sprawled in Vempalli (6894 ha, 27.39% of cultivated area) and Vemula (3613ha, 17.29% of cultivated area). The agroeconomic analysis further showed that 13.94% of lands have benefit cost ratio less than I due to seasonal aridity and creating panic among groundnut growers. These findings illustrate a possible scenario for groundnut cultivation in the event of increasing aridity and impacting crop management practices in the region

Keywords: Aridity index; Angot index; Benefit-cost ratio; Land evaluation; Soil mapping unit; Pulivendula.