Assessment of the FAO traditional land evaluation methods, A case study: Iranian Land Classification method M. B AGHERI B ODAGHABADI 1 , J. A. MART  INEZ -C ASASNOVAS 2 , P. K HAKILI 3 , M. H. MASIHABADI 4 & A. G ANDOMKAR 1 1 Najafabad Branch, Department of Geography, Islamic Azad University, Najafabad, Isfahan, Iran, 2 Department of Environmental and Soil Science, University of Lleida, Av. Alcalde Rovira Roure 191, E25198 Lleida, Catalonia, Spain, 3 Safir Sabz Co, Isfahan Science and Technology Town, Isfahan, Iran, and 4 Soil and Water Research Institute, Tehran, Iran Abstract Land evaluation is a critical step in land-use planning. Although many methods have been developed since the formulation of the FAO framework for land evaluation, several of the more traditional approaches still remain in widespread use but have not been adequately evaluated. Contrary to more recent land evaluation systems, which need considerable data, these systems only require basic soil and landscape information to provide a general view of land suitability for major types of land use. As the FAO initially presented its qualitative framework for land-use planning, based on two previous methods developed in Iran and Brazil, in this study we assessed the reliability and accuracy of a traditional land evaluation method used in Iran, called land classification for irrigation (LCI), comparing its results with several qualitative and quantitative methods and actual yield values. The results showed that, although simpler than more recently developed methods, LCI provided reliable land suitability classes and also showed good relationships both with other methods analysed and with actual yields. Comparisons between qualitative and quantitative methods produced similar results for common crops (a barley–alfalfa–wheat–fallow rotation). However, these methods performed differently for opportunist crops (such as alfalfa) that are more dependent on income and market conditions than on land characteristics. In this work, we also suggest that using the FAO method to indicate LCI subclasses could help users or managers to recognize limitations for land-use planning. Keywords: land evaluation, land suitability, land classification for irrigation, FAO framework Introduction Land evaluation based on the guidelines of the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) is a critical step in land-use planning (FAO, 1993). FAO (1976) presented a qualitative framework for land-use planning based on two methods developed in Iran and Brazil. In the three subsequent decades, other methods have also been developed, including the Sys method (Sys et al., 1991a,b), ALES (Rossiter & Van Wambeke, 1994), MicroLEIS (De La Rosa et al., 2004), Land Evaluation and Site Assessment (LESA; http://soils.usda.gov; Hoobler et al., 2003) and Agricultural Land Classification (ALC; http:// www.defra.gov.uk; MAFF, 1988). Although quantitative methods for land evaluation have also been developed (e.g. Janssen et al., 1990; Van Lanen et al., 1992; Nogu es et al., 2000; De La Rosa & Van Diepen, 2002; Zhang et al., 2004), qualitative methods are still widely used (Recatal a& Zinck, 2008; Fontes et al., 2009). There are many studies in which qualitative land evaluation methods have been compared with quantitative ones or with actual yields. Hennebed et al. (1996) evaluated the FAO framework by comparing observed and predicted yields for five food crops in Burundi. They reported that the FAO framework was able to successfully predict the yield ranges of various crops based on climate, soil data and land- use technology. They also suggested that, as the FAO method correctly predicts mean regional farm yields, it could also be useful for land-use planning. Mart  ınez-Casasnovas et al. (2008) compared land suitability and actual crop distribution in an irrigation district in Spain’s Ebro valley. Their results showed the existence of a significant relationship between Correspondence: M. Bagheri Bodaghabadi. E-mail: m.baghery@yahoo.com Received December 2013; accepted after revision April 2015 © 2015 British Society of Soil Science 1 Soil Use and Management doi: 10.1111/sum.12191 Soil Use and Management