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      Multi-criteria suitability analysis for neglected and underutilised crop species in South Africa

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          Abstract

          Several neglected and underutilised species (NUS) provide solutions to climate change and creating a Zero Hunger world, the Sustainable Development Goal 2. Several NUS are drought and heat stress-tolerant, making them ideal for improving marginalised cropping systems in drought-prone areas. However, owing to their status as NUS, current crop suitability maps do not include them as part of the crop choices. This study aimed to develop land suitability maps for selected NUS [sorghum, ( Sorghum bicolor), cowpea ( Vigna unguiculata), amaranth and taro ( Colocasia esculenta)] using Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) in ArcGIS. Multidisciplinary factors from climatic, soil and landscape, socio-economic and technical indicators overlaid using Weighted Overlay Analysis. Validation was done through field visits, and area under the curve (AUC) was used to measure AHP model performance. The results indicated that sorghum was highly suitable (S1) = 2%, moderately suitable (S2) = 61%, marginally suitable (S3) = 33%, and unsuitable (N1) = 4%, cowpea S1 = 3%, S2 = 56%, S3 = 39%, N1 = 2%, amaranth S1 = 8%, S2 = 81%, S3 = 11%, and taro S1 = 0.4%, S2 = 28%, S3 = 64%, N1 = 7%, of calculated arable land of SA (12 655 859 ha). Overall, the validation showed that the mapping exercises exhibited a high degree of accuracies (i.e. sorghum AUC = 0.87, cowpea AUC = 0.88, amaranth AUC = 0.95 and taro AUC = 0.82). Rainfall was the most critical variable and criteria with the highest impact on land suitability of the NUS. Results of this study suggest that South Africa has a huge potential for NUS production. The maps developed can contribute to evidence-based and site-specific recommendations for NUS and their mainstreaming. Also, the maps can be used to design appropriate production guidelines and to support existing policy frameworks which advocate for sustainable intensification of marginalised cropping systems through increased crop diversity and the use of stress-tolerant food crops.

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                Author and article information

                Contributors
                Role: ConceptualizationRole: Data curationRole: InvestigationRole: MethodologyRole: SoftwareRole: ValidationRole: Writing – original draftRole: Writing – review & editing
                Role: ConceptualizationRole: ValidationRole: VisualizationRole: Writing – review & editing
                Role: Data curationRole: Formal analysisRole: Writing – original draft
                Role: Data curationRole: InvestigationRole: Methodology
                Role: MethodologyRole: SoftwareRole: Supervision
                Role: MethodologyRole: SoftwareRole: SupervisionRole: Validation
                Role: InvestigationRole: MethodologyRole: ResourcesRole: SupervisionRole: VisualizationRole: Writing – review & editing
                Role: Funding acquisitionRole: Project administrationRole: ResourcesRole: SupervisionRole: Writing – review & editing
                Role: ConceptualizationRole: Data curationRole: Funding acquisitionRole: InvestigationRole: MethodologyRole: Project administrationRole: ResourcesRole: SoftwareRole: SupervisionRole: ValidationRole: VisualizationRole: Writing – original draftRole: Writing – review & editing
                Role: Editor
                Journal
                PLoS One
                PLoS One
                plos
                plosone
                PLoS ONE
                Public Library of Science (San Francisco, CA USA )
                1932-6203
                19 January 2021
                2021
                : 16
                : 1
                : e0244734
                Affiliations
                [1 ] Centre for Transformative Agricultural and Food Systems, School of Agricultural, Earth & Environmental Sciences, University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg, South Africa
                [2 ] Centre for Water Resources Research, School of Agricultural, Earth and Environmental Sciences, University of KwaZulu-Natal, Scottsville, South Africa
                [3 ] Water Research Commission of South Africa, Pretoria, South Africa
                [4 ] Institute for Sustainable Resources, University College London, London, United Kingdom
                Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, GERMANY
                Author notes

                Competing Interests: We don’t have authors with competing interest.

                [¤a]

                Current address: Centre for Transformative Agricultural and Food Systems, School of Agricultural, Earth & Environmental Sciences, University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg, South Africa

                [¤b]

                Current address: Centre for Water Resources Research, School of Agricultural, Earth and Environmental Sciences, University of KwaZulu-Natal, Scottsville, South Africa

                [¤c]

                Current address: Water Research Commission of South Africa, Pretoria, South Africa

                ‡ MS, RK and CD also contributed equally to this work.

                Author information
                https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2121-357X
                https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9323-8127
                Article
                PONE-D-20-15704
                10.1371/journal.pone.0244734
                7815157
                33465120
                294ac27a-311e-4c21-8c7b-49753df3374a
                © 2021 Mugiyo et al

                This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

                History
                : 25 May 2020
                : 15 December 2020
                Page count
                Figures: 7, Tables: 5, Pages: 24
                Product
                Funding
                Funded by: Water Research Commission of South Africa
                Award ID: K5/2717//4
                Award Recipient :
                Funded by: Caring for our Country (AU)
                Award ID: 205200/Z/16/Z
                Award Recipient :
                The authors would like to thank the Water Research Commission of South Africa for funding through WRC Project No. K5/2717//4 on “Developing a guideline for rainfed production of underutilised indigenous crops and estimating green water use of indigenous crops based on available models within selected bio-climatic regions of South Africa”, the uMngeni Resilience Project (URP, funded by the Adaptation Fund) and the Sustainable and Healthy Food Systems (SHEFS) Programme, supported through the Wellcome Trust’s Our Planet, Our Health Programme [grant number: 205200/Z/16/Z]. CD, ATM and TM are supported by the SHEFS project. VGPC, CM ATM and TM are supported by the URP.
                Categories
                Research Article
                Biology and Life Sciences
                Agriculture
                Crop Science
                Crops
                Biology and Life Sciences
                Nutrition
                Diet
                Food
                Medicine and Health Sciences
                Nutrition
                Diet
                Food
                Biology and Life Sciences
                Organisms
                Eukaryota
                Plants
                Grasses
                Sorghum
                People and places
                Geographical locations
                Africa
                South Africa
                Earth Sciences
                Atmospheric Science
                Climatology
                Climate Change
                Biology and Life Sciences
                Agriculture
                Agricultural Methods
                Sustainable Agriculture
                Ecology and Environmental Sciences
                Sustainability Science
                Sustainable Agriculture
                Biology and Life Sciences
                Agriculture
                Earth Sciences
                Geography
                Human Geography
                Land Use
                Social Sciences
                Human Geography
                Land Use
                Custom metadata
                The data that support the findings of this study are publicly available. The paper contains all necessary instructions for independent researchers to obtain the data. Data is open access which means immediate, irrevocable and free online access to information products. All data is protected under Creative Commons (CC) license and Websites have been cited accordingly, South African Quaternary Catchments database, ( https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.13179881).

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                Uncategorized

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