Small-scale evaluation of tobacco planting suitability based on spatial information technology

Abstract

Crop planting suitability evaluation is important for agricultural production. In this study, a comprehensive evaluation framework which combined geographical information system, remote sensing, global position system and geostatistics with other models was presented to evaluate the tobacco planting suitability on a small scale. Ten indicators from three respects of climate, terrain and soil nutrients were selected to build evaluation indicator system. The results show that 70% of study area is suitable for tobacco planting. However, the spatial distribution of current tobacco fields is some degree of irrationality, and 20% of fields are located in moderate or not suitable area. Through scale analysis of the arable land, the suitable fields are mainly distributed in the middle and southern parts of the study area, which is 6324.5 ha. © 2012 IFIP International Federation for Information Processing.