Evaluation of the farmland productivity of hilly region of central China based on GIS

Based on the geographic information system(GIS), using soil distribution map and introducing overlap method of land utilization map, this research decided evaluation unit and selected thirteen affected factors from five aspects as soil nutrient content, physico-chemistry condition, profile situation, land growing situation and land management, and the evaluation system and model of farmland fertility was built up. It adopts the scores which are made by experts and the Tell Fay method to identify the subjection function of several affected factors and introduces Analytical Hierarch program(AHP) and Fuzzy Mathematics Theory(FMT) to synthetically evaluate the farmland fertility of Ezhou city and also analyses its space distribution. The results suggest that 40892.4 hm² farmlands, the fertility of the grade first to sixth account for 3.39%, 19.18%, 39.24%, 31.08%, 6.32% and 0.82%, which are in line with the local situation of the city. This result can not only be applied to Ezhou agricultural production, but also contribute a beneficial exploration for carrying out studies about the evaluation of the farmland fertility of hilly regions of central China as well.