Determination potential habitats of Ferula assafoetida medicinal herb using analytical hierarchy process (AHP) and GIS (Case study: Chatrod region, Kerman)

Sustainable land use pattern relies on a precise assessment of ecological resources. Medicinal plants demand special environmental conditions, therefore, researchers and experts have special attention to land suitability evaluation and appropriately discover and assess ecological resources and finally, make feasibility studies for specific aims applying agricultural and ecological models. The present study aimed to identify effective climatological, topographic, and physical-chemical properties of soil on the habitat of the Ferula assafoetida medicinal herb, and zoning of suitable areas for cropping of these crops by means of Geographical Information System (GIS) in the Chatrod region of Kerman province. In the first step, the ecological requirements of Ferula assafoetida identified for determining scientific resources and thus, classified to provide thematic maps. Thematic maps also prepared and categorized by sampling the soil from the surface area at 14 points. The examined parameters included precipitation, temperature, altitude, sand, silt, clay, lime, pH, electrical conductivity, potassium, saturation, phosphorus, organic matter, and nitrogen. Finally, by integrating and matching the weighted maps in GIS software, the zoning of the habitat of the Ferula assafoetida extracted. The results of the zoning showed that Ferula assafoetida was in four zones (very suitable, suitable, moderate and poor) in terms of land suitability. Approximately 4826 hectares (16.9%) of the Chatrod region had highly suitable for growing the Ferula assafoetida herb. It is because of the specific characteristics of this area, such as low electrical conductivity, low acidity, high organic matter, and the height of 1900 to 2500 meters was. However, approximately 6819.6 hectares (23.8%) of the area of land evaluated as unsuitable zones because of low rainfall, high altitude and organic matter to grow of Ferula assafoetida.