Agroecosystem zone mapping as a baseline for land suitability evaluation based on remote sensing image processing and geographic information systems in Temanggung regency, Central Java province

The main problem faced by farmers in Indonesia is the diminishing area of agricultural land due to land conversion. Therefore, farmers must be able to choose the most productive types of agricultural plants based on their capability and land suitability in their agricultural areas. This study aims to develop an agroecosystem zone in Temanggung Regency based on remote sensing image processing and geographic information systems (GIS) for evaluating land suitability. The stages of this research are: (1) inventory of land biophysical conditions using primary data (interpretation of multispectral satellite images) and secondary (maps, statistics, results of previous studies); (2) study of agroecosystem components to map agroecosystem zone in the research area; and (3) evaluation of land suitability to determine the most productive types of agricultural crops for each agroecosystem zone. This research uses quantitative empirical methods based on landscape ecological approaches. The field sample was determined by stratified random sampling. Data used include: Sentinel-2 image, geological map, soil map, slope map, rainfall data, and land suitability tables for various types of agricultural crops. Image processing techniques begin with the process of rectification, sharpening, and multispectral classification to produce landform maps and land uses. Agroecosystem zones were produced from the overlay process of the agroecosystem components resulting from image and map analysis. Field surveys on predetermined samples were used for obtaining information about the bio-geophysical conditions of the land and the existing conditions of agricultural crops and their productivity, as material for preparing the land suitability map of the research area. © 2019 SPIE.