Abstract
Aim Large-scale banana production in Zimbabwe is confined to
agro-ecological zone 1, although other regions have managed to produce
to a limited extent. This is mainly because of the favourable climatic
conditions for banana growth found in this region. Across Zimbabwe,
there are zones that can be modified to mimic climatic conditions in
agro-ecological zone one. Therefore the aim of the research was to find
suitable area that supports banana optimal growth. Location Zimbabwe
Time period 36 months Major taxa studied Plantae, Magnoliophyta,
Liliopsida, Zingiberales, Musaceae, Musa Methods In this study, new
potential production areas were prospected using Maximum Entropy
(MaxEnt). The data output was mapped in ArcGIS. An average of training
and test Area Under Curve of 0.9380 and 0.976 respectively with a
standard deviation of 0.03 was achieved after 10 replication trials.
Results The Area Under Curve was represented by showing sensitivity on
the y-axis and 1-specificity on the x-axis for all potential thresholds.
Based on the bioclimatic data, the outputted model showed Area Under
Curve values greater than 0.9 indicating a good prediction ability.
Distinction of suitable areas from unsuitable areas was established
using an automatic generated threshold. Low suitable areas ranged from
0-0.46, medium suitable areas ranged from 0.46-0.77 and high suitable
areas ranged from 0.77-1. Potential production areas lied in the medium
range due to a number of factors. An approximate total of 4757.112 km2
was found to be suitable for banana expansion in Zimbabwe and this
equates to over USD $ 1,813,715.9844 billion dollars annually in net
profit. Main conclusion The major environmental factors affecting banana
distribution in Zimbabw were found to be precipitation and temperature
therefore irrigation schemes in suitable areas that has water bodies
could be of great help towards banana production expansion. Keywords:
banana production ,Maxent, GIS, species distribution models