Current World Environment

The objective of a present study was to evaluate the land of Uttarakhand for suitability of Willow. The study area located between latitude 28º43'N and 31º27'N and longitude 77º34'E and 81º02'E. and covers approximately 53,485 sq km. A suitability resulting from the overlay process of the identified theme layers has unique information of tree requirement on which the suitability is based. The identified theme layers include temperature (maximum, minimum and average temperature), precipitation and soil texture. All thematic layers with their associated attribute data were encoded in GIS database. Overlay operation was performed on these layers through the model developed using Model Builder module of ARC-view 3.2. The model was a result of the crop requirements and the range of input variables in the state. Model was applied to formulate the suitability classes. The results indicate that 38%, 29.3%, 13.2% and 19.5% area of the total geographical area of the state fall under the most suitable, suitable less suitable and not suitable categories, respectively for Willow plantation. On the basis of the results, it can be recommended that Willow can be grown on the larger area of Uttarakhand state, especially the wastelands can be utilized for cultivation of Willow, which will not only be beneficial for socio-economic point of view but also sequester large amount of the carbon from the atmosphere.

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