Mapping Agricultural Potential in the Paraopeba River Basin, Brazil, Using GIS-Based Multicriteria Decision Analysis: An Agronomic, Environmental and Economic Approach

Growing demand for food requires expanding and intensifying agriculture while maintaining environmental and economic sustainability. This study mapped agricultural potential—the relative, crop-independent capacity of land to support rainfed agricultural use (crops, pastures, and planted forests)—in the Paraopeba River Basin, Brazil, using GIS-based multicriteria decision analysis. Land-use capability, simplified climatic water balance, agricultural production value per hectare, and distance to roads were rescaled with linear fuzzy functions and combined by a weighted linear combination using Analytic Hierarchy Process weights (56.5%, 26.2%, 11.8%, and 5.5%, respectively; consistency ratio = 4.3%). Low (26.4%) and high (27.2%) potential predominated. High-potential areas were concentrated in the Lower Paraopeba and on the left bank, whereas low-potential areas predominated in the Upper Paraopeba and on the right bank, mainly driven by land-use capability. In a Monte Carlo analysis of the AHP judgments, priority areas retained their class in 92% of simulations. Because land use was used to build the economic criterion, the agreement with current agriculture is descriptive rather than an independent validation; a scenario without this criterion discriminated agricultural land from natural vegetation with an area under the curve of 0.63. The framework supports regional planning, but high potential does not justify converting native vegetation.