Assessing Natural Quality and Use Quality of Cultivated Land in Northeast China
东北地区耕地自然质量和利用质量评价

Cultivated land quality is the comprehensive reflection of different properties of cultivated land. Since natural resources, cropping structure and socioeconomic conditions varies among different regions, the natural factors and socioeconomic factors affecting cultivated land will have different influences on grain production. Therefore, it is important to manage cultivated land resources based on regionalization. The current international research relating to assessment of cultivated land quality has made great progress. Generally, these researches have been already developed from assessment of the natural quality of cultivated land to comprehensive and systematic assessment including natural, economic and social elements. However, there are still little researches focusing on assessment of land natural quality and land use quality. This paper adopted two methods to analyze the cultivated land quality in the Northeast region based on existing research achievements. quality and use quality of cultivated land The first method was used to explore the grading of natural through indicators system. And the second method was used to classify the land types according to land production level, such as high-yield cultivated land, medium- yield cultivated land and low-yield cultivated land based on grain yield. Then, Correlations between land quality and unit production was analyzed through GIS technology. The results show that natural quality of cultivated land is at the medium level or above. The total input to cultivated land is at medium level or below. It is suggested that more attentions should give to grain production of high-yield land, improvement of the medium-and-low-yielding land, and development and protection of wasteland resources. These maybe the key measures to increase the grain yield in Northeast at present. In a word, this paper is meaningful for sustainable utilization and management of cultivated land resources in this area, and also gives the useful method for the similar research.