TY - JFULL AU - Eduardo F. Arias and William Cooke III and Zhaofei Fan and William Kingery PY - 2009/7/ TI - Classification of Soil Aptness to Establish of Panicum virgatum in Mississippi using Sensitivity Analysis and GIS T2 - International Journal of Geological and Environmental Engineering SP - 148 EP - 155 VL - 3 SN - 1307-6892 UR - https://publications.waset.org/pdf/13975 PU - World Academy of Science, Engineering and Technology NX - Open Science Index 30, 2009 N2 - During the last decade Panicum virgatum, known as Switchgrass, has been broadly studied because of its remarkable attributes as a substitute pasture and as a functional biofuel source. The objective of this investigation was to establish soil suitability for Switchgrass in the State of Mississippi. A linear weighted additive model was developed to forecast soil suitability. Multicriteria analysis and Sensitivity analysis were utilized to adjust and optimize the model. The model was fit using seven years of field data associated with soils characteristics collected from Natural Resources Conservation System - United States Department of Agriculture (NRCS-USDA). The best model was selected by correlating calculated biomass yield with each model's soils-based output for Switchgrass suitability. Coefficient of determination (r2) was the decisive factor used to establish the 'best' soil suitability model. Coefficients associated with the 'best' model were implemented within a Geographic Information System (GIS) to create a map of relative soil suitability for Switchgrass in Mississippi. A Geodatabase associated with soil parameters was built and is available for future Geographic Information System use. ER -