Evaluation of Alborz Province Ecological Potential in Terms of Agriculture by Geographic Information System and Analytical Hierarchy Process

Suitable and optimal land use requires an accurate assessment of agricultural ecological resources. Here the research process was done to determine the ecological potential of agricultural lands (EPAL) in Alborz province by identifying ecological resources and finally modeling ecological potential (EP). To prepare the EP map, the layers of effective ecological resources in the irrigated crop, dry farming, garden, and arboriculture uses, were determined according to the parametric method, and then the significance coefficient of each criterion was calculated by the AHP method and the couple criteria competition. The results showed that out of 22.6% of the lands in the province that are in the suitable class for irrigated agriculture, 6.7%, and 6.2% are in Savojbolagh and Nazarabad cities, respectively, and the rest of this area, is in the other uses. The cities of Savojbolagh and Nazarabad based on the results of ecological potential, a total of 70,699 hectares of land are suitable for gardening and arboriculture, which, according to the comparison with the current situation (33971 hectares) shows that about 36,728 hectares of agricultural lands in the province have a high ecological potential for gardening and tree planting. Unlike the other two lands, uses dry farming of 9064 hectares, which is currently satisfied regardless of the potential of 20097 hectares of land. Finally, we can point to the high EP of Alborz province in the agricultural sector, which, unfortunately, due to the lack of sufficient attention to land management policies, not all of this capacity is used.