Analysis of cultivated land consolidation potential in China

Land consolidation plays an important role in increasing cultivated land. Therefore, the paper proposed a method to measure the cultivated land consolidation potential in China. Meanwhile, based on survey data of land use changed in 2008, the farmland classification data and background information of typical project of cultivated land consolidation, the potentials of the cultivated land consolidation were evaluated qualitatively and quantitatively at the county scale. The results proved the considerable and concentrated potential capacities in China. The counties with high quantitative potential mainly distributed in Heilongjiang and Jilin in northeast China, Henan, Anhui and Hubei in the east, Sichuan, Guizhou and Yunnan in the southwest, Xinjiang in the northwest; Those with high qualitative potential were in Heilongjiang in the northeast, Xinjiang, Inner Mongolia and Ningxia in the northwest, Shandong and Anhui in the east, Hubei and Hunan in central China, Guizhou, Sichuan and Yunnan in the southwest. The study can facilitate recognition about distribution of the potentiality and designation of the key regions of cultivated land consolidation in China, and can provide data reference for planning national comprehensive land management.