Method for zoning high-standard ecological farmland construction using multi-dimensional super-volume ecological niche

Site selection and upgrading direction can greatly contribute to the high-standard ecological farmland construction, particularly for the high investment benefits and disasters resistance. In this study, an evaluation system was constructed for the high-standard ecological farmland using the multi-dimensional super-volume ecological niche from five dimensions, including the soil conditions, standing conditions, spatial stability, landscape pattern, and ecological constraints. A quantitative assessment was also performed on the 326 460 cultivated land patches in Baoding City, Hebei Province of China. The results show that: 1) The better performance was achieved in the high-standard ecological farmland construction suitability evaluation index system in the city from the aspects of soil conditions, standing conditions, spatial stability, landscape pattern, and ecological constraints. The construction suitability was also comprehensively evaluated to better reflect the spatial distribution characteristics of cultivated land plots. There was the medium construction suitability of cultivated land in the study area. Among them, there was the largest area (about 194 200 hm2) of arable land that was barely suitable for construction, accounting for about 27.93% of the total cultivated land in the city, followed by medium suitable cultivated land with an area of 180 000 hm2, accounting for about 25.90% of the total. 2) There was no area of soil condition obstacles ≤0.5 for the construction of high-standard farmland, indicating that the cultivated land was greatly affected by the soil conditions. Specifically, the areas with the obstacles of 0.51-0.70, 0.71-0.80, and 0.81-1.00 accounted for 17.31%, 38.51%, and 44.17% of the total area, respectively. 3) The study area was divided into the high-standard ecological farmland production priority construction area, production sub-priority construction area, "production-ecology" collaborative construction area, reserve construction area, and ecological conservation area, according to the combination of restriction factors and construction suitability of different transformation difficulties under ecological constraints. The cultivated land area of the production priority construction area was 209 900 hm2, indicating the high construction suitability. Nevertheless, the main obstacle factors were difficult to transform, while the regional optimal level was reached with a little transformation, indicating a large improvement potential. The land construction suitability of the sub-priority production construction area is relatively high. The “production-ecology” cultivated land area of the collaborative construction area was about 86 400 hm2, which was affected by the obstacle factors of the ecological constraint dimension. The cultivated land area of the reserve construction area was about 204 700 hm2, mainly distributed in the hilly areas, such as Yi County, Quyang County, and Fuping County. The cultivated land area of the ecological conservation area was about 56 200 hm2, where the more effective paid and orderly exit mechanism should be explored or regulated as a reserve resource. The farmland protection strategy should also be implemented to fully meet the needs of reasonable land use.