Abstract
The quantitative evaluation of the suitability of land fallow is of great significance to the effective implementation of fallow system in rural China. The purpose of this study is to systematically evaluate the cultivated areas suitable for fallow in Chongqing, China. The results show that: (1) a comprehensive index of cultivated land fallow (ILF) was developed by employing a series of multi—source data, and the ILF has been proven as an effective proxy to identify the cultivated areas suitable for fallow; (2) cultivated land with ILF values above the average value accounts for 34.38% (9902 km2) of the total cultivated land; (3) the ILF is negatively correlated with the population density, transportation proximity, and proportion of inclined area. This study argued that the ILF can reflect the cultivated areas suitable for fallow in Chongqing and can provide guidance for the spatial distribution of cultivated land fallow. The findings indicated that the differences in geographical elements between karst and non—karst areas must be further investigated, and the evaluation accuracy of the cultivated areas suitable for fallow must be improved.
Highlights
Global land productivity is declining at an unprecedented rate [1,2], rooted in the fact that more and more land is unsuitable for cultivation and that the main source of human food is being lost [3]
The purpose of this study is to develop an index of cultivated land fallow (ILF) for the spatial evaluation of cultivated land, which considers several impact indicators
The results showed that the comprehensive quality of cultivated land was generally high, the difference in the local spatial distribution was large
Summary
Global land productivity is declining at an unprecedented rate [1,2], rooted in the fact that more and more land is unsuitable for cultivation and that the main source of human food is being lost [3]. Soil erosion, and depletion of land fertility have greatly reduced the function of land as a living and ecological guarantee for people [5,6]. The prospects for the ecological environment in China are not optimistic because of soil erosion, soil pollution, and other ecological resource challenges [7,8]. The quality of cultivated land resources in China is generally low, and intensive land exploitation is a crucial approach to China’s future food security [8,9,10,11]
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