Predicting the adaptability of sudden oak death in China using spatial information technology

Sudden oak death which is caused by the pathogen phytophthora ramorum has killed thousands of oak trees in Europe and North America in recent decades and also threaten the forests in China. In this study, we choose 4 climate predictor variables to predict the adaptability of sudden oak death in China. First we assign the importance of each variable by using analytic hierarchy process(AHP), and then we build the membership function of each variable by using fuzzy mathematics method. With the climate data of 752 weather stations in China, we interpolate them in GIS to generate the variable layers and compute the final adaptability of sudden oak death by averaging the adaptability in each month of the pathogen´s general reproductive season. The result shows that sudden oak death can be suitable for a wide range in China, most of where are southeastern regions.