Palestinian Strategic Food Security via Land Suitability Analysis for Reclamation

Rezq Basheer-Salimia^1, , Mohamad Al-Amleh² and Alsalimiya Mohamad²

¹Department of Plant Production and Protection, Faculty of Agriculture, Hebron University, Palestine

²Land Research Center (LRC), Palestine

Cite this paper

Rezq Basheer-Salimia, Mohamad Al-Amleh and Alsalimiya Mohamad. Palestinian Strategic Food Security via Land Suitability Analysis for Reclamation. Journal of Food Security. 2014; 2(1):27-32. doi: 10.12691/JFS-2-1-4

Abstract

Recent assessments concluded that 38% of the Palestinian population is food insecure. In addition, 11% and 16% of the population in West Bank and Gaza Strip respectively, are vulnerable to food insecurity. Increasing food production could be achieved either by increasing the agricultural productivity and/or expanding cultivable land. The main goal of this study is to provide an accurate guide for the unused lands in the Hebron Governorate on its suitability for reclamation and the best usage of these lands for cultivation via GIS techniques. According to the reclamation suitability level, the land was classified into four categories: most, highly, moderate, and least suitable. Main parameters included were landform class (slope, foot slope, hill crest, and drainage depression), slope degree, rockoutcrop percentage, aspect, and climate (arid, semi-arid, and sub-humid).Out of 106,700 hectare of the total area of the Hebron Governorate, only 30% is devoted to various agricultural practices and 62% is still unused and thereby available for land use. Additionally, the study results indicated that a total of 24,560 hectares were suitable for reclamation. Of this, 13%, 60%, and 27% were found to be mostly, highly, and moderately respectively suitable for reclamation. The present study is the first attempt to evaluate the land suitability for reclamation at Palestine level using GIS techniques.

Keywords

food security, land suitability, GIS, land reclamation

Copyright

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

References

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