Suitability evaluation of fruit trees in Fujian southern mountain areas based on DEM and GIS using a multi-criteria evaluation approach

The application of a multicriteria evaluation (MCE) approach to identify suitable areas for the production of banana, lichee and longyan in Southeast of Fujian Province in China is presented. Climate, terrain and soil databases were used to integrate GIS coverage. Because of the varied topography of Fujian province, the yearly average temperature and minimum temperature were modeled through DEM for the whole region. The evaluation factors of slope, aspect were derived from DEM through ARCGIS8.3 software. Relevant criteria for this fruit trees and suitability levels were defined. This information was used to obtain the criteria maps, which in turn were used as input into the MCE algorithm. Using weighted linear combination with the GIS data layers, a certain suitability map could be produced. Landsat TM images in the autumn of 1998 were processed using ERDAS Image8.5 software by means of a supervised classification to obtain a land use/cover map. These land use/cover and the suitability maps were crossing to identify differences and similarities between the present land use and the suitable areas for banana, lichee and longyan.