Abstract:
The application of a Multi-Criteria Evaluation(MCE) approach to identify suitable areas for the production of banana, lichee and longan in Southeast of Fujian Province in China was presented. Climate, terrain and soil databases were used to integrate GIS coverage. Because of the varied topography of Fujian Province, the yearly average temperature and minimum temperature were modeled through Digital Elevation Model(DEM) for the whole region. The evaluation factors of slope, aspect were derived from DEM through ARCGIS8.3 software. Relevant criteria for this fruit trees and suitability levels were defined. This information was used to obtain the criterion maps, which in turn were used as input into the MCE algorithm. Suitability evaluation result map was produced using weighted linear combination and AHP method programmed by ESRI software Arcobjects and Visual Basic language. Land use/cover map and distribution map of fruit trees of 2001 were gained using ERDAS Image8.5 software by means of a supervised classification from Landsat TM images. These land use/cover and the suitability maps were crossed to identify differences and similarities between the present land-use and the suitable areas for banana, lichee and longan.