Grape Production Constraints in Terms of Climatic Elements and Land Physical Factors Using AHP Model in GIS Environment (Case Study: East Azarbaijan Province)

Grape is one of the nutritious fruits that have commercial value as well, and most farmers try to raise it in their lands. Considering various factors affecting growth and yield of grape, the process of assessing the suitability of land for cultivation in order to spatial planning of this product needs the use of comprehensive and diverse geographic and descriptive information. GIS technology provides the possibility of using this type of data and facilitates spatial analysis of information based on the appropriate models. Therefore, in this study regarding the ecological needs of grape, multi-criteria decision making (MCDM) method based on analytical hierarchy process (AHP) was used for modeling and spatial analysis of information in ARC/GIS 9.3 software environment. Eventually, East Azarbaijan province suitable lands for grape cultivation and production with regard to climatic elements and land physical factors (temperature, precipitation, relative humidity, topography, etc.) were evaluated and zoned. Results of this research showed that, spatially, 10 percent of the province has conditions varying between suitable to very suitable for grape production compared to the rest of province which in terms of spatial zones included Mianeh, Malekan, Shabstar, Jolfa, Bonab and Ajabshir cities and the most suitable areas were presented concerning final layer.