Abstract

Overall of the research come from fact of Indonesian high dependency on rice production from Java island. The ultimate objective of the overall research will be land use planning of rice production centers in Karawang Regency, West Java. This paper presents only partially results of first year research. In this first year research, study was focused on the characterization of land resource, either using primary and secondary data, focusing on inventory and land evaluation. In this paper, the physical and economical land evaluation for paddy was done in the northern part of Karawang using Automated Land Evaluation System. Paddy field delineation was done using remote sensing and Geographic Information System. The results of analysis showed that the study area has a land suitability classes for paddy vary from highly suitable to marginally suitable. Most of the area with low land suitability class can be improved to become its potential land suitability. Economic land suitability analysis showed that paddy cultivation in the study area was profitable, with a diminishing returns with reducing class of physical land suitability. The main constraint of paddy cultivation was the low average of land tenure.Result of the first year research can be used to give physical recomendation for increasing paddy field production.