The limited forest cover creates economic problems associated with the cost of timber . According to some reports, a large part of Iran was covered by forests 73 years ago , 2017. This has been reduced to 14.2 million ha at present due to poor management . In the northern forests of the country, severe logging has destroyed about 12,000 ha annually . Because of widespread destruction in the northern forests of Iran, industrial logging was stopped in 2017 in the name of “forest rest” strategy . Importing wood is expensive, in part because of the country’s economic problems, and demand is being met by producing wood from fast-growing tree species. Therefore, wood-farming is one of the most important strategies for meeting Iran’s demand for wood despite deforestation, economic problems, global warming, and changing climates . Iran has a diversity of climatic and ecological conditions and certain woody species have adapted to certain ecological zones of the country. For successful wood-farming, tree species must be chosen carefully . Therefore, prediction of the best places for farming fast-growing trees in each ecologic zone is very important. In this regard, investigation of habitat suitability for fast-growing trees is very important. Habitat suitability for some species has been investigated in different regions around the world. Reza et al. integrated GIS and expert judgment in a multi-criteria analysis to map and develop a habitat suitability index in peninsular Malaysia. The suitability of habitat patches for each species was measured by integrating GIS data with expert opinions. Expert opinions provided information about the stresses faced by the species because ground surveys provided insufficient information on their own. Their results revealed that many habitat patches have become unsuitable for certain species. Arvola et al. mapped the future market potential of timber from small-scale tree farmers in Tanzania.

Primary qualitative data were collected to determine the importance of smallholder tree growers in the forest transition process and wood value chain. Sixty semi-structured interviews with tree farmers in four villages and discussions with timber buyers and processors yielded expert data. The results showed that strong market demand created dual markets,blueberry grow pot where higher quality industrial plantations supply larger industries and small enterprises acquire wood from lower-quality small-holder plantations. For wood-farming in in agro-ecosystems, restoration plans considering vegetation and fauna is also essential in agro-ecosystems. In some regions around the world, semi-natural vegetation and farming ecosystem have created proper conditions for wildlife conservation . Wade et al. stated that sustainable agricultural practices along with ecological restoration methods can reduce the detrimental effects of agriculture. Restoration methods must be technically achievable and socially acceptable and spread over a range of locations. One option for this type of mutual benefit is the use of agri-environmental schemes to provide financial incentives to landholders for providing conservation services and other benefits. Benayas and Bullock provided a practitioner’s perspective related to landsharing restoration actions in the central Spain and concluded that practical restoration projects are essential to improve biodiversity and to return of wildlife in agricultural landscapes. Barral et al. investigated ecological restoration and its effectiveness against biodiversity losses in agro-ecosystems globally by analyzing the results of several studies from 20 countries. Their results showed that restoration in agroecosystems increased the biodiversity of all types of organism by an average of 68%. There has, however, been no effort to model the ideal lands for farming fast-growing woody species anywhere in the world. There are more than 700 species of eucalyptus, a fast-growing genus of Myrtaceae.

The tree is endemic to Australia , Philippines, Papua New Guinea, Indonesia, and Timor . Eucalyptuses grow in diverse ecological conditions . Some species have industrial value , while others are used primarily for landscaping, and green space . Eucalyptus is used to produce wood products like paper, charcoal, and timber. This wood of this genus is hard, heavy, and durable . The primary benefits of farming eucalyptus are that it grows rapidly and can be harvested repeatedly and more frequently than conventional trees. They can be cultivated on poor lands. They are used for secondary successional remediation and post-fire regeneration. Eucalyptus can be used architecturally , for nonstructural wood products like pulp, rayon, and for sleepers , and are used to produce high-value medicines . Eucalyptus is tolerant to a range of environmental conditions . They are relatively tolerant to salinity and high temperatures, and are drought resistant . Many studies have found that eucalyptuses are hearty and have adapted to many semi-arid and tropical areas throughout Africa, in India, and in Brazil . Eucalyptus is grown in semi-arid Iran, as well . Because they are salt tolerant and their resistant to drought, eucalyptuses are fit for southern Iran . This species was imported into Iran more than a century ago. It was planted in the country’s south . There have been some studies that have examined the compatibility and fit of several eucalyptus species for wood production in southern Iran . The results can guide selection of the best eucalyptus species for farming in southern Iran. Although, the use of eucalyptus in southern Iran has been investigated, there has not been an assessment of the spatial extent of conditions conducive to eucalyptus wood-farming. So far, no comprehensive study has identified the best locations for eucalyptus wood-farming in Iran, while identifying the lands that are best fit for eucalyptus wood farming is a critical step toward meeting Iran’s wood demands . Planning wood-farming development in Iran has many informational challenges as many geographical data are lacking. Therefore, a manager’s knowledge of the geographic, hydrologic, ecologic, edaphic, and climatic conditions of areas of the country is needed to fit specific species to specific places. To assess the ecological priorities of eucalyptus for wood-farming, a large volume of data is needed. Acquiring, organizing, and integrating the data is only possible using tools like remote sensing and geographic information systems.

Satellite data can provide evidence of the dimensions of the factors that are important to growing trees because they are gathered over vast areas, they reduce time and financial costs of field investigations, and they are repeatedly and frequently collected . GIS can also aid mapping and analysis of spatial data and can be used to integrate digital layers . This study pioneers the examination of land suitability for fastgrowing wood species. Specifically, Khuzestan Province, Iran, is assessed for its capacity to support eucalyptus wood-farming. The fuzzy analytic hierarchy process , RS, and GIS, are used to spatially examine the most critical controls on eucalyptus wood-farming. Past studies have shown that E. camaldulensis possesses a great capacity to adapt to drought, salinity, and heat . Therefore, this species is used as a benchmark for the conditions that may support eucalyptus farming. The hypothesis is that Khuzestan Province possesses high ecological potential for eucalyptus wood farms. The multi-criteria decision-making method used in this study was fuzzy AHP which combines AHP and fuzzy sets . This method has been used to rank effective factors in diverse environmental assessment studies and to identify lands that are ideal for specific purposes. This method has been used by decision makers for land management . However, this study is the first to use fuzzy AHP to determine the best lands for wood-farming. Since for many MCDM methods , the availability of empirical field data is required as a first step, the use of these methods was impossible because of the nonexistence of a eucalyptus plantation map at the start of the study. This project filled that gap and used the FAHP approach. It has been shown to be a powerful modeling process . Studies have also recommended the use of expert judgment in an MCDM method to determine the importance of the effective factors used for habitat suitability mapping when field data are not available prior to the research.Therefore, the advantage of this method is that the field data were not required at the start of the study, but they were required for validation of the final wood-farming potential map.

An error matrix was created based on the comparison of the classified pixels in the eucalyptus wood-farming potential map to the corresponding pixels in the actual eucalyptus plantations map  and the validation results were determined . The error matrix contains two rows and two columns reflecting eucalyptus plantations and non-eucalyptus plantations.The first is the number of pixels suitable for eucalyptus plantation in both the classification and in the reality. The second is the number of pixels that are unsuitable for eucalyptus in both data sets. The subsidiary diameter indicates that the FAHP method ignored 77,518 pixels in the classification. The number 11,023 is the number of pixels that are not eucalyptus plantation, but the FAHP classified them incorrectly as suitable for eucalyptus plantation. OA and k were obtained from the error matrix and the results revealed that OA of the map is 82% and k is 0.71. These indicate that the eucalyptus wood-farming potential map is suitably accurate.This study identified the lands that are suitable for eucalyptus wood farming in southern Iran. It is the first time that eucalyptus wood farming potential map has been provided in southern Iran. Land cover, ecological, climatic, hydrologic, hydroponic bucket and edaphic factors were weighted using the FAHP method to combine these factors in GIS to produce a wood-farming potential map. The fuzzy weights for the water, land cover, soil, and climate factors were 0.34, 0.32, 0.24, and 0.10, respectively. Water had the most weight and was therefore the most important factor in determining suitability of parcels for eucalyptus wood-farming. Other studies performed in southern Iran also determined that water influences the diameters and heights of eucalyptus, and therefore it is very important in eucalyptus growth . Eucalyptus needs at least 4000 m3 /ha/yr water to establish itself in southern Iran . There are many eucalyptus species and their water demands vary considerably. E. camaldulensis, for instance, requires more water than E. microtheca . E. camaldulensis was selected as the baseline for analysis of eucalyptus ecological needs because it has shown to be very productive in the conditions of southern Iran . Regarding soil sub-factors, salinity was the most important. The others, soil depth , soil texture , and soil pH , were thus ranked. Though eucalyptus can tolerate semi-saline soils , salinity limits growth in diameter and height. A few species of eucalyptus can tolerate higher levels of salinity.

The resulting ranks of the soil sub-factors, therefore, seem reasonable. Among eucalyptus species, E. camaldulensis and E. microtheca are known to be the most tolerant of salinity and are thus recommended for wood production in Khuzestan Province . Soil salinity below 4 ds/m is the most desirable conditions for E. camaldulensis growth . Suitable lands, in terms of soil salinity, can be found in the northwestern part of the study area . Soil depth and soil texture were of moderate importance. Eucalyptus has thrived on deep soils in Semnan, Qom, Ilam, and Lorestan provinces in Iran . This confirms the relative importance of soil depth on eucalyptus farming. On the other hand, eucalyptus is sensitive to “heavy” soil and doesn’t grow very well in clay soils . The tree does much better in sandy soils . Fortunately, most of study area in Khuzestan Province has deep soil and clay sandy, sandy loam clay, and loam textures , suitable soil texture for E. camaldulensis farming. Soil pH is the least important soil sub-factors. As soil pH ranged from 7.0 to 8.9 in the study area, and as eucalyptus tolerates pH between 7.0 and 8.5 , pH is not a limiting factor for eucalyptus farming in the study area. Most soils in the study area have pH between 7.0 and 8.5 which makes them suitable, for eucalyptus farming . Among the water sub-factors, annual volume of water accessible by plants was determined to be the most important subfactors and is followed by distance from river , surface-water salinity , groundwater depth and groundwater salinity . In fact, sufficient surface water within a useful distance is important for any type of farming.