Exploitation potential of unutilized land suitable for cultivated land based on its suitability in Ji’nan City

For achieving food security, as the cultivated land reserve resources, the exploitation of unutilized land is an important approach to supplement cultivated land. Taking Ji’nan City, Capital of Shandong Province as an example and according to land suitability evaluation, the paper calculates the exploitation potential of unutilized land, and further considering factors such as topographical, traffic condition, infrastructure and location, divides potential areas with cluster analysis. The results show that 65.39% of the unutilized land are suitable for cultivated land, but the quality is lower. Limited by the natural factors, the distribution of the unutilized land suitable for cultivated land in various districts is different. Among all the distribution types of potential area, type I mainly belongs to plain region in the north of Ji’nan City as a priority area. Type II is widely distributed in the north, middle and south of Ji’nan City as the second priority area. Type III mainly in the middle suburb of Ji’nan City is a moderate potential area for exploitation. Type IV mainly distributed in the hilly area of middle part of Ji’nan City is the worst potential area. This study can determine the exploiting sequence of the different regions in Ji’nan City and the research results can provide reference for the exploitation of unutilized land.