Estimation of arable land resources potential in hilly area of Taihang Mountain based on binary Logistic regression model

Research on the potential of cultivated land resources in mountainous area is particularly important for the sustainable development and utilization of arable lands. Using Jingxing County of Hebei Province, a typical hilly county in Taihang Mountain, as a case study, the potential for reserved cultivated land in mountain regions was estimated. A total of 13 ecological factors influencing the potential of cultivated land resources in hilly areas were used in the analysis-5 terrain factors and 8 climate or climate-related factors. A binary Logistic regression model was built on key ecological factors to analyze the potential of arable land resources in mountain regions in the case-study area. The distribution map of potential arable land resources in Jingxing County was draw in GIS environment based on the result binary Logistic regress and the potential arable land resources in the region analyzed from the map. The key ecological factors among 13 factors that influenced arable land resources were extracted using the same binary Logistic regression model. The order of the contribution of key ecological factors was determined using the model parameter (Waldχ²). The regression coefficient (β) was used to analyze the correlation between the key ecological factors and potential arable land resources in the region. Odds ratio (OR) was use to show correlation between the changes in configuration of key ecological factors and the changes in potential arable land resources. The results showed that there were 8 key ecological factors influencing cultivated land resources in the case-study area, with the importance order of relief > elevation > slope position index > trasp > coldness index > annual average temperature > drought index > slope. Terrain factors were more important indicators than the climate-related factors in estimation of cultivated land resource potential. Among 8 key ecological factors, annual average temperature and coldness index were both negatively and positively correlated with potential arable land resources, while other 6 factors were all negatively correlated with potential arable land resources. OR calculation showed that except drought index, the one unit change of the key ecological factors caused 1 time change in cultivated land resource potential. About 60 400 hm² of land resources were available for cultivation in the Jingxing County. The analysis of SPOT5 image showed 45 600 hm² of existing cultivated land. Therefore, there were 14 800 hm² of cultivatable land reserves in the county, accounted for 32.5% of the existing cultivatable lands in the region. This suggested that there still were a lot of cultivatable land reserves in Jingxing County. The results of this study provided theory basis for the development and utilization of cultivated land reserves in Jingxing County.