Agricultural land suitability analysis for an integrated rice-crayfish culture using a fuzzy AHP and GIS in central China

Integrated rice-crayfish (Procambarus clarkii) culture (IRCC) is an effective form of ecological intensification that has been widely and rapidly promoted in China. Agricultural land suitability analysis is one of the key tools for ensuring the effective use of land resources and sustainable development of IRCC. The aim of this study was to assess the land suitability for IRCC in Hubei Province, which has the largest area of rice-crayfish farming in China, using the integrated fuzzy analytic hierarchy process (FAHP) and geographic information system (GIS) approach. The results indicated that >= 10 degrees C accumulated temperature (12.8 %), distance from water bodies (11.5 %), slope (11.2 %), land use (7.4 %), and soil texture (7.3 %) were the five most influential determinants of highly suitable areas for IRCC. It was estimated that 6.4 % (11,898.0 km(2)) of the study area was highly suitable, 11.3 % (21,061.0 km(2)) was moderately suitable, 2.2 % (4,004.0 km(2)) was marginally suitable, and 80.1 % (149,026.0 km(2)) was currently not suitable for IRCC. We also found that the highly suitable areas were mainly distributed in the south-central region of Hubei Province, which were significantly correlated with the existing IRCC areas. About 59.8 % (7,120.5 km(2)) of the highly suitable areas were available for further IRCC development in Hubei Province, but Qianjiang, Huanggang, Xianning, and Enshi needed to impose a ceiling on IRCC, because the extent of their existing IRCC areas was greater than that of the highly suitable areas. Sensitivity and correlation analyses demonstrated that the suitability results for IRCC were reliable and robust. The results of this study provide useful guidelines in terms of agricultural land use planning and management, enabling the rational and sustainable development of IRCC both locally and nationally.