The purpose of this study was to prepare a cropland suitability map of Mongolia
based on comprehensive landscape principles, including topography,
soil properties, vegetation, climate and socio-economic factors. The primary
goal was to create a more accurate map to estimate vegetation criteria (above
ground biomass AGB), soil organic matter, soil texture, and the hydrothermal
coefficient using Landsat 8 satellite imagery. The analysis used Landsat 8 imagery
from the 2016 summer season with a resolution of 30 meters, time series
MODIS vegetation products (MOD13, MOD15, MOD17) averaged over 16
days from June to August 2000-2016, an SRTM DEM with a resolution of 30
meters, and a field survey of measured biomass and soil data. In total, 6 main
factors were classified and quality evaluation criteria were developed for 17
criteria, each with 5 levels. In this research the spatial MCDM (multi-criteria
decision-making) method and AHP based GIS were applied. This was developed
for each criteria layer’s value by multiplying parameters for each factor
obtained from the pair comparison matrix by the weight addition, and by the
suitable evaluation of several criteria factors affecting cropland. General accuracy
was 88%, while PLS and RF regressions were 82.3% and 92.8%, respectively.
