Land Suitability Assessing for Saffron Cultivation Based on Using Vikor Method in GIS (Case Study Malayer City)

Crop production ability and its potential are significantly up to climate, topography and land use which are the most important environmental factors. In this study, using climatic data such as temperature, precipitation, number of frost days, sunny hours and relative humidity related to phonology steps of saffron growing, Also ground resource data such as topography, land use layers which are prepared by Landsat 8 satellite imagery dated 14/5/2013. Evaluating each of these parameters have been taken in relation to the climate and ecology needs of saffron. Information layers of them were prepared by adjusting data to the surface, and processing them by GIS technology. Multi-criteria decision analysis methods (MCDM), based on vikor were used in order to prioritize and evaluate information layers and their weights in connection with each other. Then layers were weighted based on the criteria and subject model also these layers were overlapped and analyzed in GIS environment. Consequentially, the final layer of land suitability was prepared for saffron cultivation. In this study, 10.23, 45.25 and 45.52 percent of the total area are good, average and weak suitability lands respectively. According to this research, vikor method can have an acceptable function over selecting the fitness values for each class.