Abstract
This study was aimed at optimizing the weighted linear combination method (WLC) for agricultural land suitability evaluation (ALSE) through indicator selection, weight determination, and classification of overall suitability scores in Handan, China. Handan is a representative research area with distinct agricultural advantages and regional differences in land use, where the expansion of construction land has led to a rapid decrease of agricultural land in recent years. Natural factors (topography, climate, soil conditions, and vegetation cover) and socioeconomic factors (land use and spatial accessibility) were selected to establish a more comprehensive evaluation system. The index weight was calculated by the mutual information between index suitability and current land use. The consistency index was used to identify the boundary value dividing the overall suitability score into a suitable category and unsuitable category in each sub-region. The results demonstrated that the optimized WLC-ALSE model outperformed the comparison models using conventional methods in terms of the consistency between the evaluation results and current land use. Owing to the increasing limitations of topography, soil conditions, spatial accessibility, and land use, the proportions of suitable land in Zone 1, Zone 2, and Zone 3 were 77.4%, 67.5%, and 30.9%, respectively. The agricultural land unsuitable for agriculture (14.5%) was less than non-agricultural land suitable for agriculture (7.4%), indicating that agricultural land had low growth potential in Handan. Finally, specific recommendations were made to improve agricultural land suitability, alleviate land use conflicts, and further optimize the model. The results can provide effective guidance for WLC-ALSE and land use decision-making for sustainable agriculture.
Highlights
With the continuous growth of the earth’s population, maintaining the area and productivity of agricultural land is becoming increasingly important for producing enough food [1]
The suitability of topography, soil conditions, land use, and spatial accessibility gradually decreased from east to west
This study mainly examined the performance of evaluation models by comparing the evaluation results with current land use, which was a common practice in previous research [8,65]
Summary
With the continuous growth of the earth’s population, maintaining the area and productivity of agricultural land is becoming increasingly important for producing enough food [1]. The serious spatial conflicts between agricultural land and non-agricultural land have posed a serious threat to food security and sustainable agricultural development in many parts of world. Agricultural development has destroyed important ecological spaces with low suitability for crop production, leading to deforestation, soil erosion, and habitat destruction [3]. As the basis of land use planning and decision-making, agricultural land suitability evaluation (ALSE) is urgently needed to reduce the risks of agricultural land and promote the sustainable agriculture [4,5]. It has been applied to analyze agricultural development potential [8], optimize land use patterns, identify spatial conflicts, improve agricultural land productivity, develop crop insurance models [9], and conduct major function-oriented zoning [10]
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a callDisclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.
