ASSESSMENT OF LAND SUITABILITY FOR AGRICULTURAL DEVELOPMENT IN XIENG KHOANG PROVINCE, LAO PEOPLE’S DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC

Abstract

Land suitability asssessment, playing the vital role in the orientation of agricultural land use in each region, is to indicate the suitablity of each Land Use Type (LUT) with natural property of land in the research area. The research objective is to determine the classification of land suitability of LUTs in Xieng Khoang province. Based on the FAO’ Land suitability assessment, the result of overlapping of 6 thematic maps, including: Soil types, slope, soil texture, soil depth, irrigation and precipitation indicated that there were 157 Land Mapping Units (LMUs) with 12.797 plots in the research area of 1.251.696,25 ha. The results of land suitability assessment of 4 LUTs, including: Rice, orther annual crops, grassland and perennial plants show that at high suitability level (S1) occupied 20% total area, at moderate (S2) and low (S3) suitability level with 30 - 80% area, at non-suitability level (N) had around > 60% with annual crops and accounted roughly 12% for grassland and perennial plants. The results of land suitability assessment are significant background to propose the orientation of agriculral land use in the future, in Xieng Khoang province, Lao DPR.