GIS/Remote Sensing Assessment for Ethanol/Sugarcane Plantation Development: Sierra Leone, Africa.

A land concession of nearly 400 km2 in northwestern Sierra Leone was studied in 2012 with Remote Sensing and Geographic Information Systems (GIS) products and technology to determine what percentage of the area is suitable for sugarcane development and to design the plantation layout. The purpose of the plantation is to ultimately manufacture ethanol on site. An executive level feasibility report concluded that approximately 40% or 160 km2 of the area-of-interest (AOI) should be suitable for crop growth. Satellite imagery was collected over the area to obtain ortho-imagery, stereo-pair imagery for topography compilation and multi-spectral imagery to determine land-use/land-cover of the area. The topography compilation test results yielded an RMSE of 0.31 meters. From these data sets, GIS processes were used to derive statistics and perform analysis on topography and slope, hydrology and drainage, AOI road network grade, comprehensive land use/land cover, vegetation and soils health and potential ethanol production site locations. After analysis of these individual topics, they were grouped to compute a combined land characterization grid, ranking areas in the AOI from most to least preferred for sugarcane development. Different irrigation methodologies were then analyzed to determine percentage of land in the AOI suitable for each irrigation practice. The findings/conclusion of this study determined that the AOI would not yield the desired quantity of sugarcane and to achieve the desired quantity, the AOI must be expanded or moved to a new location.