Climate change in Pakistan is causing extreme events, water stress, lower crop yields, and ultimately food and nutrition insecurity. Conventional agricultural systems fail to adapt to these changes. Aquaponics, a combination of aquaculture and hydroponics, falling under climate-resilient agriculture, ensuring circular resource flow, is one such solution. The application of Geographic Information System-based land-use planning for the aquaponics greenhouse in Islamabad has not been done to date. The objective, therefore, is to apply an Integrated Geographic Information System and a multi-criteria evaluation approach for identifying potentially suitable sites in Islamabad for the establishment of a pilot aquaponics greenhouse. The study extends conventional suitability, linking biophysical factors with conceptual-practical implementation considerations, providing a comprehensive decision framework. The analytical hierarchy process was integrated into suitability mapping. Factors including built-up, natural infrastructure like waterbodies, rivers, artificial infrastructure like roads, topography, and land use and land cover were used. The key finding of the study is that 2.7% of the land in Islamabad is the best strategic site for constructing aquaponics greenhouses. The originality lies in the context-application focus, contributing to the emerging challenge of climate-induced food insecurity. Thus, providing a decision-support framework for resource management and sustainable food systems, while emphasizing integration of feasibility considerations in future research.
Laila et al. (Thu,) studied this question.