Delineation of Suitable Areas for Maize in China and Evaluation of Application for the Technique of Whole Plastic-Film Mulching on Double Ridges

Abstract

Climate, topography, soil and land use data which closely associated with the distribution of maize (Zea mays L.) has been collected and collated to identify the suitable areas for maize on condition of nature and using the technique of whole plastic-film Mulching on Double Ridges in China, the database of these factors have been created in the current article. The weights of these factors, criteria and suitability levels have been defined using Multi-Criteria Evaluation (MCE) approach based on Geographic Information System (GIS), each factor was classed into five suitability levels: Most suitability, Moderate suitability, and medium, Moderate unsuitability and Unsuitability. Pair-wise comparison matrixes were made to get the weights of each factor, the suitability maps of the factors have been obtained by overlaying these layers according to their weights, got the suitability map for maize. The suitable areas map was created by the suitability map and the land use map which has been masked the non-cultivated land. The result indicated that the higher yield of maize can be gained from 4.535×105 km2 which distributed in 741 counties in16 provinces. In accordance with the method of above, analysis the suitable area after the techniques of whole plastic-film mulching on double ridges was used. The results showed the higher yield could be got in 6.145×105 km2, some areas of Gansu, Inner Mongolia and other places in arid and semiarid areas that can’t distribute or only have low yield maize could get higher yield after using the technique of whole plastic-film mulching on double ridges. With the increased requirement of food, the new techniques and the more perfect regional planning of grain could be take into account for socio-political and environment issues.