Locating areas prone to pistachio cultivation in Ayask using geographic information system

Water and soil are the main factors for agricultural production.. Due to the limitation of suitable land and good quality (fresh) water, it is very important to plant plants that can tolerate unfavorable water and soil conditions and have an economic crop. The pistachio tree is a plant that has relatively good resistance to salinity and lack of water, so its planting in lands where planting other garden and agricultural crops is not cost-effective has gradually become common, and thus, its cultivated area has increased in recent years. In this research, using the capability of geographic information system, the areas prone to pistachio cultivation in Ayask city were evaluated. For this purpose, the basic information of water (salinity, water absorbable sodium), soil (salinity, soil absorbable sodium and soil pH), topography (slope and elevation classes) and meteorology (average temperature, minimum temperature, maximum temperature, pollen temperature, (relative humidity and rain) of the area were collected and interpolated using the kriging method in the geographic information system; Then, based on the relationship between each of the environmental and climatic parameters of the city and the ecological needs of pistachio, the resulting maps were classified according to the possibility of pistachio cultivation. Using the hierarchical method, assigning value and combining the resulting maps in the GIS environment, the results showed that 44% of land is suitable, 47% is average land, and 9% is unsuitable for pistachio cultivation.