The proposal of this study was to use the Geographical Information System (GIS) in order to indicate the best areas to implant irrigated crop. It was used information of the rural settlement area of Antonio Farias, localized in Campos dos Goytacazes municipality, north region of Rio de Janeiro State, Brazil. Using the software IDRISI 32, it was possible to create information to support crop irrigation planning by technicians, extensionists and farmers. Digital maps of the soil and topographic maps, as well as thematic maps of drainage, roads and farm boundaries were used. The maps of costs per hectare of implementing irrigated crops of dwarf coconut tree were obtained by crossing soil, climate and relief data. The final cost in this study is composed by the sum of partial costs of liming, fertilization, irrigation pipes and pump. It was observed from the generated maps that the implantation cost of irrigation varied between settlement parcels (as some were in favorable areas). The proposed methodology was able to identify the most agroeconomically apt areas for implementing crop irrigation systems. This methodology used in this study can also be extended to analyze irrigation implementation costs for other crops just by changing the agronomic indices for other crops.
irrigation planning; implantation cost maps; GIS
