Imperial College London
Portrait Picture

Kaveh Madani, PhD, F.AGU, F.EWRI

Faculty of Natural Sciences, Centre for Environmental Policy

Visitng Professor
 
 
 
//

Contact

 

+44 (0)20 7594 9346k.madani Website

 
 
//

Location

 

16 Prince's GardensSouth Kensington Campus

//

Summary

 

Publications

Citation

BibTex format

@article{Mesgaran:2017:10.1038/s41598-017-08066-y,
author = {Mesgaran, MB and Madani, K and Hashemi, H and Azadi, P},
doi = {10.1038/s41598-017-08066-y},
journal = {Scientific Reports},
title = {Iran's Land Suitability for Agriculture},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-017-08066-y},
volume = {7},
year = {2017}
}
Download

RIS format (EndNote, RefMan)

TY  - JOUR
AB  - Increasing population has posed insurmountable challenges to agriculture in the provision of future food security, particularly in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region where biophysical conditions are not well-suited for agriculture. Iran, as a major agricultural country in the MENA region, has long been in the quest for food self-sufficiency, however, the capability of its land and water resources to realize this goal is largely unknown. Using very high-resolution spatial data sets, we evaluated the capacity of Iran’s land for sustainable crop production based on the soil properties, topography, and climate conditions. We classified Iran’s land suitability for cropping as (million ha): very good 0.4% (0.6), good 2.2% (3.6), medium 7.9% (12.8), poor 11.4% (18.5), very poor 6.3% (10.2), unsuitable 60.0% (97.4), and excluded areas 11.9% (19.3). In addition to overarching limitations caused by low precipitation, low soil organic carbon, steep slope, and high soil sodium content were the predominant soil and terrain factors limiting the agricultural land suitability in Iran. About 50% of the Iran’s existing croplands are located in low-quality lands, representing an unsustainable practice. There is little room for cropland expansion to increase production but redistribution of cropland to more suitable areas may improve sustainability and reduce pressure on water resources, land, and ecosystem in Iran.
AU  - Mesgaran,MB
AU  - Madani,K
AU  - Hashemi,H
AU  - Azadi,P
DO  - 10.1038/s41598-017-08066-y
PY  - 2017///
SN  - 2045-2322
TI  - Iran's Land Suitability for Agriculture
T2  - Scientific Reports
UR  - http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-017-08066-y
UR  - http://gateway.webofknowledge.com/gateway/Gateway.cgi?GWVersion=2&SrcApp=PARTNER_APP&SrcAuth=LinksAMR&KeyUT=WOS:000407294200027&DestLinkType=FullRecord&DestApp=ALL_WOS&UsrCustomerID=1ba7043ffcc86c417c072aa74d649202
UR  - http://hdl.handle.net/10044/1/63062
VL  - 7
ER  -
Download