Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science in Remote Sensing and Geographic Information Systems

Thesis (M.Sc.) - Asian Institute of Technology, 2009

Land suitability of afforestation analysis is the important tools for decision maker to launching a reforestation program. Based on the Cambodia forestry statistic issued in year 2002 reported that the forest cover has been reduced from 75% in year 1960 of the whole country to 59.09 % in year 2005-06. The evidence has shown that the suitable afforestation sites and tree relation is needed. The major purpose of the research is aimed to use remote sensing data to generate land use and land cover (LU/LC) map and for better understanding of present land cover for afforestation. Degraded land has been introduced as the effectiveness for afforestation because it has less conflict between other lands uses types. Furthennore, to assess land suitability for afforestation, Geographic Information System (GIS) base multi-criteria mainly base on FAO framework 1983 for assign weighting factor including six major aspects concerning topography, soil, temperature, drainage, transportation and village accessibility in with desirable tree species were defined as for land suitability analysis. In assessment of all the above-mentioned aspect, the land is suitable for para rubber combining with assessing of bio-physical requirement with 4,178.32 ha of the land was found to be consider as highly suitable, 6,354.04 ha is well suitable 322.05 is moderate suitable and 36.37 ha is considered as poorly suitable. In the same area, cassava has contributed 5,356.18 ha as considered as poorly suitable