Evaluation of cultivated land productivity of Wanyuan county, Sichuan province using GIS

Abstract

The objectives of the current study are to determine the factors impacting cultivated land productivity and to illustrate the spatial distribution pattern of cultivated land productivity using GIS. Landform information (slope and topographical position), soil physical and chemical properties (effective soil depth, organic matter, parent materials, texture, pH, total nitrogen, available phosphorus, available potassium, and drainage capacity), and cropping system were selected to assess the cultivated land productivity using Delphi technique. The weight of each index was determined by AHP approach. The results showed that about 60.21% of the study area was classified as third level followed by 28.5% of the total area as forth level, located in northwestern and southern Wanyuan, respectively. The highly productivity cultivated land is mainly distributed in valley with slope of less than 15° in Wanyuan county. © 2012 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.