Evaluation of farmland quality with the integration of GIS and RS technology at village scale

Mastering farmland quality is significant for achieving soil fertility management and promoting sustainable development of farmland resource. Evaluating the farmland quality is a complex problem, because many influencing factors are interrelated and interaction. The Yanba village in Chongqing city in China was chosen as study area. According to the existing index system of agricultural department, the study screened the critical influencing factors, including natural factors and social factors, which could be mapped by spatial analysis technology at village scale. The Delphi method was used to determine the weight of each influencing factors. Taking the farmland parcels as basic units, the comprehensive evaluation model for farmland quality at village scale was developed, through which the s farmland quality in the Yanba village was mapped and analyzed. By the method of density slice and threshold adjustment, the farmland quality in the study area was divided into four levels. Results showed that the spatial distribution of farmland with different quality levels derived from the developed model was consistent with the data of the agricultural department in the study area. This finding indicated that the comprehensive evaluation model with multi-source spatial information could effectively map the farmland with different quality levels at village scale.