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Groundwater resources (GWR) play a crucial role in agricultural crop production, daily life, and economic progress. Therefore, accurate prediction of groundwater (GW) level will aid in the sustainable management of GWR. A comparative study was conducted to evaluate the performance of seven different ML models, such as random tree (RT), random forest (RF), decision stump, M5P, support vector machine (SVM), locally weighted linear regression (LWLR), and reduce error pruning tree (REP Tree) for GW level (GWL) prediction. The long-term prediction was conducted using historical GWL, mean temperature, rainfall, and relative humidity datasets for the period 1981–2017 obtained from two wells in the northwestern region of Bangladesh. The whole dataset was divided into training (1981–2008) and testing (2008–2017) datasets. The output of the seven proposed models was evaluated using the root mean square error (RMSE), mean absolute error (MAE), relative absolute error (RAE), root relative squared error (RRSE), correlation coefficient (CC), and Taylor diagram. The results revealed that the Bagging-RT and Bagging-RF models outperformed other ML models. The Bagging-RT models can effectively improve prediction precision as compared to other models with RMSE of 0.60 m, MAE of 0.45 m, RAE of 27.47%, RRSE of 30.79%, and CC of 0.96 for Rajshahi and RMSE of 0.26 m, MAE of 0.18 m, RAE of 19.87%, RRSE of 24.17%, and 0.97 for Rangpur during training, and RMSE of 0.60 m, MAE of 0.40 m, RAE of 24.25%, RRSE of 29.99%, and CC of 0.96 for Rajshahi and RMSE of 0.38 m, MAE of 0.24 m, RAE of 23.55%, RRSE of 31.77%, and CC of 0.95 for Rangpur during testing stages, respectively. Our study offers an effective and practical approach to the forecast of GWL that could help to formulate policies for sustainable GWR management. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The unique physiographic conditions, abundant rainfall, and anthropogenic disturbances in the mountainous Western Ghats (WG) region often cause landslides, which leads to loss of life and properties. The present study aims to generate a landslide susceptibility map for a mountainous WG region using novel hybrid methods. For this, a landslide inventory database is prepared with 82 landslide locations and twelve landslide contributing factors, viz., lithology, geomorphology, slope angle, soil texture, relative relief, distance from the streams, distance from the roads, distance from the lineaments, topographic wetness index (TWI), rainfall, land use/land cover, and slope curvature were used for modelling. Initially, four bivariate approaches, viz., information value (InfoV), evidential belief function (EBF), certainty factor (CF), and index of entropy methods (IoE), were applied to model landslide susceptibility, and the accuracy was estimated. Thereafter, these models were integrated with random forest (RF) to build hybrid models. The computed hybrid models were evaluated using ROC–AUC and confusion matrix-based statistical measures. Hybrid models show higher accuracy with ROC–AUC values ranging from 0.894 to 0.928 in the training phase and 0.906 to 0.925 in the testing phase. The RF-InfoV model was proven to be comparably efficient for landslide susceptibility analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The central region of Vietnam has a tropical monsoon climate but often undergoes heat waves due to uncontrolled urbanization, foehn winds, and climate change. Water bodies are considered effective candidates for heat mitigation in cities through the water cooling island (WCI) effect. Quantifying the WCI capacity of water areas and related factors is necessary for sites with advantages of surface water. The current attempt used the WCI effect range (Lmax), temperature drop amplitude (ΔTmax), and temperature gradient (Gtemp) to investigate the cooling effect of 20 lakes in the Thanh Noi region, Hue City. Data derived from high-resolution Google Earth, Landsat-8 Satellite Imagery Data, and ground truth. The results show that the average water temperature of the 20 studied lakes was about 36.61 °C, lower than the average temperature in the area with an urban heat island (UHI) of about 2.82 °C. The mean Lmax was 150 m, ΔTmax was 1.52 °C, and Gtemp was 10.16 °C /km or 0.01 °C/m. Climate characteristics and human impacts had reduced the ability of the lakes to create WCI during the period when the lake water level was low. The factors that influenced the WCI significantly were the landscape shape index (LSI), the proportion of green (PG), and the percentage of impervious surfaces (PI). Most lakes with relatively simple LSI, high PG, and low PI obtained high WCI, suggesting that structural and landscape characteristics played a critical role in urban cooling. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Flood is considered as the most devastating natural hazards that cause the death of many lives worldwide. The present study aimed to predict flood vulnerability for Warsaw, Poland, using three machine learning models, such as the Bayesian logistic regression (BLR), the artificial neural networks (ANN), and the deep learning neural networks (DLNNs). The perfomance of these three methods was assessed in order to select the best method for flood vulnerability mapping in densely urbanized city. Thus, initially, thirteen flood predictors were evaluated using the information gain ratio (IGR), and eight most important predictors were considered from model training and testing. The performance of the applied models and accuracy of the result was evaluated through the area under the curve (AUC) and statistical measures. By using the testing dataset, the result reveals that DLNN (AUC = 0.877) is the more performant model in comparison to ANN (AUC = 0.851) and BLR (AUC = 0.697). However, the BLR model has the lowest predictive capability. The results of the present study could be effectively used for the urban flood management strategies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this study, statistical and soft-computing methods are compared in forecasting groundwater levels under Shared Socioeconomic Pathways (SSPs) SSP1-2.6, SSP2-4.5, and SSP5-8.5 from Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 6 (CMIP6) in Tasuj Plain, Iran, for a near future period (2022–2027). A combination of general circulation models (GCMs) was used in the projection of precipitation and temperature in the future period. The estimation of climate variables for 2020–2044 period indicated that the temperature will increase, while the precipitation will decline. In simulation temporal groundwater level, wavelet-nonlinear autoregressive network with exogenous inputs (NARX), autoregressive integrated moving average (ARIMA), and wavelet-adaptive neuro-fuzzy inference system (ANFIS) models were used. The comparison of performance criteria for these models in the simulation of groundwater level demonstrated that the wavelet-NARX model with the R2 of 0.99 has shown better efficiency. Finally, the simulation of groundwater level through the wavelet-NARX model was carried out for different scenarios. The results indicated that future groundwater levels in Tasuj Plain would continue to decline by 3.12 m, 3.96 m, and 4.79 m, for SSP1-2.6, SSP2-4.5, and SSP5-8.5, respectively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Under the inaccessibility of optimum networks and lack of well-organized rain gauge data, the provided high-resolution satellite estimates serve as a vital baseline for hydro climate-associated studies. In the rugged topography of South Gojjam Basin, satellite rainfall estimates from the African Rainfall Climatology (ARC2), Climate Hazard Group Infrared Precipitation with Stations Data (CHIRPSv2), African Rainfall Estimations Algorithm (REFv2), and Tropical Applications of Meteorology using Satellite (TAMSATv3) were evaluated and compared with rain gauge rainfall data. Satellite rainfall estimates were evaluated at spatiotemporal scales with observed data using approaches of point observed rainfall data and areal averaged rainfall comparisons for the period of 2001–2018. The basin was divided into two parts, according to geographical region, to identify the effect of topographical variation. Besides, the spatial map of the annual satellite rainfall estimate pattern was illustrated with observed rainfall data for comparison. The result showed that TAMSATv3 and RFEv2 rainfall estimates showed the best performance than ARC2 and CHIRPSv3 products at daily time scales and in both spatial scales (i.e., higher, and lower elevations). On a monthly and wet season timescale, the CHIRPSv2 product was outperformed, even though the four satellite products performed better. CHIRPSv2 and TAMSATv3 products presented overestimated rainfall in the lower elevation region at daily and monthly scales, while ARC2 and RFEv2 products were underestimated at all spatiotemporal scales. Overall, CHIRPSv2 and TAMSATv3 satellite rainfall estimates showed good relation to the rain gauge rainfall data in the rugged topography and a limited number of rain gauges in the South Gojjam basin. Thus, this study decided that CHIRPSv2 and TAMSATv3 satellite rainfall data could be used as an alternative to rain gauge rainfall on a monthly and wet season time scale for hydroclimate studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Flood is one of the most destructive natural hazards associated with substantial damage in various world regions. In this study, Iran’s Kalan basin was divided into ten sub-watersheds. Then, 13 flood-related morphometric criteria, i.e., drainage density (Dd), bifurcation ratio (Rb), frequency of streams (Fs), slope (S), time of concentration (Tc), form factor (Rf), shape factor (Bs), Gravelius factor (Rc), elongation ratio (Re), roughness factor (RR), mean elevation (H), and drainage density of mainstream (D), were derived for each sub-watershed. Afterward, the picture fuzzy-analytic hierarchy process (PF-AHP) and picture fuzzy-linear assignment model (PF-LAM) were combined to assign weights to selected morphometric criteria and rank the sub-watersheds based on the level of flood susceptibility. The results showed that Ag and Aj sub-watersheds were the most susceptible sub-watersheds to flooding. In contrast, Ac and Ai sub-watersheds had the lowest susceptibility to flooding. Prioritization and ranking of sub-watersheds from the perspective of flood susceptibility can be a powerful tool in terms of flood prevention and in providing the most effective mitigation measures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The delta of the Mekong River is one of the largest in the world, with the Mekong River carrying a large amount of sediments in its Region of Freshwater Influence (ROFI). This study investigates the flow structure and movement of both suspended and bedload sediments in the ROFI of the Lower Mekong Delta (LMD) in order to identify areas prone to sediment accretion and erosion. This is accomplished by applying the three-dimensional Coastal and Regional Ocean COmmunity (CROCO) model and then calculating the sediment budget of different stretches of the coastline. The model outputs, depicting areas experiencing sediment accretion and erosion along the coastline of the LMD, are then compared against observations obtained during the period 1990–2015 and demonstrate the ability of the model to identify areas particularly prone to erosion and where preventive actions against coastal erosion should focus. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Determining areas of high groundwater potential is important for exploitation, management, and protection of water resources. This study assesses the spatial distribution of groundwater potential in the Zarrinehroud watershed of Kurdistan Province, Iran using combinations of five statistical and machine learning algorithms – frequency ratio (FR), radial basis function (RBF), index of entropy (IOE), evidential belief function (EBF) and fuzzy art map (FAM). To accomplish this, 1448 well locations in the study area were randomly divided into two data sets for training (70%= 1013 locations) and validation (30%= 435 locations) based on the holdout method. Fourteen factors that can affect the presence or absence of groundwater were identified, measured, and mapped using ArcGIS and SAGA-GIS software. The models were used to predict the locations of groundwater based on suitable combinations of the conditioning factors to produce groundwater potential maps. The probability of groundwater at any location was classified as low, moderate, high, or very high based on natural breaks in the data spectrum. The model predictions were tested for validity and their success was determined using receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves, standard errors (SE), positive predictive value (PPV), negative predictive value (NPV), sensitivity (SST), specificity (SPF) and accuracy (ACC), and the Friedman test. The performance assessments of groundwater potential predictions using the area under the curve (AUC) and accuracy (ACC) showed that the FR-RBF model had very good performance (AUC= 0.889, ACC= 87.51). FR-FAM (AUC= 0.869, ACC= 84.67), EBF-FAM (AUC= 0.864, ACC= 84.42), EBF-RBF (AUC= 0.854, ACC= 83.94), FR-IOE (AUC= 0.836, ACC= 83.62), and EBF-IOE (AUC= 0.833, ACC= 80.42) also had acceptable performance. The results of the Friedman test also show that there are significant differences between the models and the highest mean rank was generated by the FR-FAM model (3.642). Therefore, the hybrid models can be used to increase the accuracy of groundwater-prediction models in the study region and perhaps in similar settings. The groundwater potential was studied in the area of Zarrinehroud watershed A combination of methods including FR, RBF, IOE, EBF and FAM Very high and high groundwater potential areas were located in the northern half The development of hybrid models can increase the accuracy of the results [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study tests the applicability of three resampling methods (i.e. bootstrapping, random-subsampling and cross-validation) for enhancing the performance of eight machine-learning models: boosted regression trees, flexible discriminant analysis, random forests, mixture discriminate analysis, multivariate adaptive regression splines, classification and regression trees, support vector machines and generalized linear models, compared to the use of the original data. The results of models were evaluated using correlation (COR), area under curve (AUC), true skill statistic (TSS), receiver-operating characteristic and the probability of detection (POD). The evaluation showed that the bootstrapping technique improved the performance of all models. The Bootstrapping-random forest (with COR = 0.75, AUC = 0.92, TSS = 0.80 and POD = 0.98) proved to be the best model for landslide prediction. Among the 18 contributing factors, distance from fault, curvature and precipitation were the most influential in all 32 models. Hazard prediction of landslide by the 8 machine-learning (ML) models. Multiple morphometric, climatic, geologic, vegetation and human factors were used. Tests the applicability of three resampling methods. The performance of the ML models and coupling models were assessed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mangroves belong to the most productive ecosystem on the Earth as they provide essential services in stabilizing shorelines, preventing erosion, carbon sequestration, and climate change. In recent decades, mangroves in the Andaman Islands have gone through enormous changes because of natural and anthropogenic activities. The main objective of this study was to investigate the extended areas of mangroves in the Andaman region and explore the major factors affecting their degradation. For this, we used the archives of the Landsat imageries in the Google Earth Engine cloud platform to identify the mangrove areas derived from a random forest model. The combined seven different Landsat spectral indices based on their ratios and Shuttle Radar Topography Mission (SRTM) data were used to delineate the mangrove-occupied areas. The resulting map of Andaman mangrove extents shows that the total mangrove area in 2000 was 1412 km2, 1164 km2 in 2010, and 887 km2 in 2020. The mangrove loss occurred by 25% between 2000 and 2020 in mangrove regions; because of the tsunami in 2004 in the Andaman Islands, severe degradation of the mangroves was observed in South Andaman Islands. In contrast, 5% of the mangrove areas were recovered in 2020 in the South Andaman region. The overall accuracy achieved during the mangrove classification in 2000 was 100%; for 2010, it was 99.7%, and for 2020 it was 99.9%, respectively. The mangrove areas were depleting due to several factors from the north to the south Andaman Islands. Furthermore, the results were analyzed with the possible landuse changes. Mangrove depletion occurred in the north Andaman region as a result of deforestation and agricultural conversion, whereas it is severely affected in the South Andaman region due to natural calamities. The results of this study are useful for understanding the landuse dynamics that influence the mangroves in the Andaman Islands region. Sufficient measures are necessary to maintain the sustainable management of mangroves for maintaining the coastal ecosystem stability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Accurate and reliable discharge estimation is considered vital in managing water resources, agriculture, industry, and flood management on the basin scale. In this study, five data-driven tree-based algorithms: M5-Pruned model-M5P (Model-1), Random Forest-RF (Model-2), Random Tree-RT (Model-3), Reduced Error Pruning Tree-REP Tree (Model-4), and Decision Stump-DS (Model-5) have been examined to measure the daily discharge of Govindpur site at Burhabalang river, India. The proposed models will be calibrated by daily 10-years time-series hydrological data (i.e., river stage (h) and daily discharge (Q)) measured from 2004 to 2013. In these models, 70% and 30% of the dataset were used for the training and testing stage for the reliability of the developed models. The precision of the models was optimized by investigating five different scenarios based on various time-lags combinations. Model's performance has been assessed and evaluated using five statistical metrics, namely, correlation coefficient (R2), Mean Absolute Error (MAE), Root Mean Square Error (RMSE), Relative Absolute Error (RAE), and Root Relative Squared Error (RRSE). Results showed that Model-3 outperforms as compared to other proposed models. Machine learning models have been examined five scenarios of input variables during training and testing phases. In comparison of the Model-5 struggled in capturing the river's flow rate and showed poor performance in scenarios where R2 metric values ranged from 0.64 to 0.94. Therefore, it can be concluded that the RT model could be used as a robust model for sustainable flood plain management. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The quality of groundwater in the study watershed has worsened because of industrial effluents and residential wastes from the urbanized cities; therefore, there is an important need to explore the aquifer vulnerability to pollution for sustainable groundwater management in the Irrigated Indus Basin (IIB). This study proposed a novel methodology to quantify groundwater vulnerability using two fully independent methodologies: the first by reintroducing an improved recharge factor (R) map and the second by incorporating three different weight and rating schemes into a traditional DRASTIC framework to improve the performance of the DRASTIC approach. In the current study, we composed a recharge map from Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) output (namely SWAT recharge map) with a drainage density map to retrieve an improved composite recharge map (SWAT-CRM). SWAT-CRM along with other thematic layers was combined using weightage overlay analysis to prepare the maps of groundwater vulnerability index (VI). The weight scale (w) and rating scale (r) were assigned based on a survey of available literature, and we then amended them using the analytical hierarchy process (AHP) and a probability frequency ratio (PFR) technique. Results depicted that the region under high groundwater vulnerability was found to be 5–22% using traditional recharge maps, while those are 9–23% using improved SWAT-CRM. The area under the curve (AUC) revealed that groundwater vulnerability zones predicted with SWAT-CRM outperformed the DRASTIC model applied with the traditional recharge map. Groundwater electrical conductivity (EC) was>2500 mS/cm in the high groundwater vulnerability zones, while it was <1000 mS/cm in the low groundwater vulnerability zones. The outcomes of this study can be used to improve the sustainability of the groundwater resources in IIB through proper land-use management practices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Groundwater is considered as an imperative component of the accessible water assets across the world. Due to urbanization, industrialization and intensive farming practices, the groundwater resources have been exposed to large-scale depletion and quality degradation. The prime objective of this study was to evaluate the groundwater quality for drinking purposes in Mewat district of Haryana, India. For this purpose, twenty-five groundwater samples were collected from hand pumps and tube wells spread over the entire district. Samples were analyzed for pH, electrical conductivity (EC), total dissolved solids (TDS), total hardness (TH), turbidity, total alkalinity (TA), cations and anions in the laboratory using the standard methods. Two different water quality indices (weighted arithmetic water quality index and entropy weighted water quality index) were computed to characterize the groundwater quality of the study area. Ordinary Kriging technique was applied to generate spatial distribution map of the WQIs. Four semivariogram models, i.e. circular, spherical, exponential and Gaussian were used and found to be the best fit for analyzing the spatial variability in terms of weighted arithmetic index (GWQI) and entropy weighted water quality index (EWQI). Hierarchical cluster analysis (HCA), principal component analysis (PCA) and discriminant analysis (DA) were applied to provide additional scientific insights into the information content of the groundwater quality data available for this study. The interpretation of WQI analysis based on GWQI and EWQI reveals that 64% of the samples belong to the "poor" to "very poor" bracket. The result for the semivariogram modeling also shows that Gaussian model obtains the best fit for both EWQI and GWQI dataset. HCA classified 25 sampling locations into three main clusters of similar groundwater characteristics. DA validated these clusters and identified a total of three significant variables (pH, EC and Cl) by adopting stepwise method. The application of PCA resulted in three factors explaining 69.81% of the total variance. These factors reveal how processes like rock water interaction, urban waste discharge and mineral dissolution affect the groundwater quality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Changes in the streamflow pattern raise a plethora of implications on the morphological, economic, social, and cultural aspects of an entire river basin. Trend analysis of hydrological time series is the most common method to identify these changes. Several methods have been proposed to identify the trends in time series. In the present study, Mann–Kendall (MK), innovative trend analysis (ITA), and revised innovative trend analysis (RITA) were used to identify the trend in discharge and sediment load at two gauging sites of the lower Drava River Basin, during 1988–2017 with an objective to compare and understand the limitations of these methods. Innovative trend analysis provided greater visualization of the trend of different magnitude of discharges and sediment load as compared to Mann–Kendall test. However, it was observed that due to certain assumptions, ITA produced significant trends when the trends were insignificant. The significance of trends obtained from RITA was in close agreement with the Mann–Kendall test. In this regard, the method of determining the significance of trend in ITA needs to be rechecked and revised. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Precise and reliable runoff forecasting is crucial for water resources planning and management. The present study was conducted to test the applicability of different data-driven techniques including artificial neural networks (ANN), support vector machine (SVM), random forest (RF) and M5P models for runoff forecasting for the lead time of 1 day and 2 days in the Koyna River basin, India. The best input variables for the development of the models were selected by applying the Gamma test (GT). Two different scenarios were considered to select the input variables for 2 days ahead runoff forecasting. In the first scenario, the output of 1 day ahead runoff (t + 1) was not used as an input while it was also used as an input along with other input variables for the development of the models in the second scenario. For 2 days ahead runoff forecasting, the models developed by adopting the second scenario performed more accurately than that of the first scenario. The RF model performed the best for 1 day ahead runoff forecasting with root mean square error (RMSE), coefficient of efficiency (CE), correlation coefficient (r) and coefficient of determination (R2) values of 168.94 m3/s, 0.67, 0.84 and 0.704, respectively, during the test period. For 2 days ahead runoff forecasting, RF and ANN models performed the best in the first and second scenario, respectively. In 2 days ahead runoff forecasting, RMSE, CE, r and R2 values were observed to be 169.72 m3/s, 0.67, 0.84, 0.7023 and 148.55 m3/s, 0.74, 0.87, 0.76 in the first and second scenarios, respectively, during the test period. Finally, the results revealed that the addition of 1 day ahead runoff forecast increased the forecast accuracy of 2 days ahead runoff forecasts. In addition, the dependability of the various models was determined using the uncertainty analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Climate change has been a significant subject in recent years all around the world. Statistical analysis of climatic parameters such as rainfall can investigate the actual status of the atmosphere. As a result, this study aimed to look at the pattern of mean annual rainfall in India from 1901 to 2016, considering 34 meteorological subdivisions. The Mann–Kendall (MK) test, Modified Mann–Kendall (MMK) test, Bootstrapped MK (BMK) test, and Innovative Trend Analysis (ITA) were used to find trends in yearly rainfall time-series results. Rainfall forecasting was evaluated using detrended fluctuation analysis (DFA). Because the research comprised 34 meteorological subdivisions, it may be challenging to convey the general climatic conditions of India in a nutshell. The MK, MMK, and BMK tests showed a significant (p < 0.01 to p < 0.1) negative trend in 9, 8, and 9 sub-divisions, respectively. According to the ITA, a negative trend was found in 17 sub-divisions, with 9 sub-divisions showing a significance level of 0.01 to 0.1. The ITA outperformed the other three trend test techniques. The results of DFA showed that 20 sub-divisions would decrease in future rainfall, suggesting that there was a link between past and future rainfall trends. Results show that highly negative or decreasing rainfall trends have been found in broad regions of India, which could be related to climate change, according to the results. ITA and DFA techniques to discover patterns in 34 sub-divisions across India have yet to be implemented. In developing management plans for sustainable water resource management in the face of climate change, this research is a valuable resource for climate scientists, water resource scientists, and government officials. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A comprehensive overview of flow characteristics in natural channels with bedforms is a vital issue in river management projects. Pool-riffle sequences as common bedforms in the gravel-bed rivers significantly impact flow characteristics and turbulence intensity. The present study was taken by field investigation in the Babolroud River, Iran. A 95 m reach with variable width was chosen in this river and velocity components and shear stress were obtained in different sections. Quadrant analysis was also applied to determine the dominant bursting event in the pool section. The results revealed a phase shift for stream-wise velocity, near-bed velocities, and bed shear stress versus bed profile. In the pool, vertical velocity components were oriented downward near the bed and upward near the water surface, while in the riffle section vectors were oriented towards the bed. The findings of quadrant analysis demonstrated the ejections and sweeps as a dominant event close to the bed and water surface, respectively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the last few years, the agricultural sector in Syria has suffered from major problems related to land degradation. To cope with this problem, a land suitability assessment has become an essential tool for sustainable land use management. The present research qualitatively evaluated the suitability of land in the Al-Yarmouk Basin (S-Syria) for rainfed winter wheat (Triticum aestivum) cultivation. In this study, a regional spatial approach involving three steps was developed, based on the method proposed by Sys et al. In the first step, a soil survey was carried out and 107 soil profiles were described, sampled and analyzed. In the second step, climatic gridded datasets from 1984–2014 MRm at a high spatial resolution (30 meters) and the Digital Elevation Model (DEM) were clipped from NASA's Shuttle Radar Topography Mission (SRTM) and prepared for the study area. In the third step, a land suitability assessment was performed using the geographical information system (GIS) and multi criteria decision support (MCDS). Soil survey outcomes showed that the study area was dominated by five soil orders: Mollisols, Inceptisols, Vertisols, Entisols and Aridisols. Also, results from the Sys model illustrated that more than 23.8% of the study area is highly suitable (S1–0) for wheat production without any limitations, whereas 38.7% and 37.5% are highly suitable (S1–1) and moderately suitable (S2), respectively. Also, the study emphasizes the important role of topographical factors in the study area for wheat cultivation. All in all, this research suggests W-Syria as a potential region for wheat cultivation, instead of the eastern area which is subject to climate change and a shortage of water. Integrating the Sys-approach and the GIS framework offers a good tool for policy-makers to apply in Syria for land suitability assessments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]