Dairy cattle production suitability analysis using GIS and analytical hierarchy process in Amhara Region, Ethiopia
Year: 2025
Type: article
Abstract: Amhara region is endowed with diverse agroecology suitable for dairy production. However, there is limited quantitative information indicating this potential of dairy production. This study aims to analyse and map the suitability of biophysical factors for dairy production in Amhara region using Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) and Geographic Information System (GIS) tools. Temperature, rainfall, altitude, land cover and slope were the top biophysical factors chosen for dairy cattle suitability mapping. The suitability mapping showed that majority of the temperature (53.6%), altitude (24.8%) and slope (59.5%) in the region were classified as highly suitable. The AHP analysis result indicated that temperature has got the highest weighted value (0.41) followed by rainfall (0.24) to influence the requirements of dairy cattle production. From the total area under study, 14.2%, 56.1%, 28.1% and 1.7% was highly suitable, moderately suitable, marginally suitable and not suitable, respectively. This result is found to be important to support decision making on dairy production investment, reduce dairy investment risks and contribute to food security and job opportunity. This would help to plan sustainable development of dairy production. The future study related to suitability should integrate socioeconomic and institutional aspects.
Institutions: Amhara Agricultural Research Institute, Bahir Dar University
Language: English
Subfield: Management, Monitoring, Policy and Law
Field: Environmental Science
Domain: Physical Sciences
Open Access status: diamond
OpenAlex ID: W7142939865
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