Comprehensive Suitability Evaluation of Tea Crops Using GIS and a Modified Land Ecological Suitability Evaluation Model

Tea(Camellia sinensis) is one of the most valuable cash crops in southern China;however,the planting distribution of tea crops is not optimal and the production and cultivation regions of tea crops are restricted by law and custom.In order to evaluate the suitability of tea crops in Zhejiang Province,the annual mean temperature,the annual accumulated temperature above 10 C,the frequency of extremely low temperature below 13 C,the mean humidity from April to October,slope,aspect,altitude,soil type,and soil texture were selected from climate,topography,and soil factors as factors for land ecological evaluation by the Delphi method based on the ecological characteristics of tea crops.These nine factors were quantitatively analyzed using a geographic information system(GIS).The grey relational analysis(GRA) was combined with the analytic hierarchy process(AHP) to address the uncertainties during the process of evaluating the traditional land ecological suitability,and a modified land ecological suitability evaluation(LESE) model was built.Based on the land-use map of Zhejiang Province,the regions that were completely unsuitable for tea cultivation in the province were eliminated and then the spatial distribution of the ecological suitability of tea crops was generated using the modified LESE model and GIS.The results demonstrated that the highly,moderately,and non-suitable regions for the cultivation of tea crops in Zhejiang Province were 27 552.66,42 724.64,and 26 507.97 km 2,and accounted for 28.47%,44.14%,and 27.39% of the total evaluation area,respectively.Validation of the method showed a high degree of coincidence with the current planting distribution of tea crops in Zhejiang Province.The modified LESE model combined with GIS could be useful in quickly and accurately evaluating the land ecological suitability of tea crops,providing a scientific basis for the rational distribution of tea crops and acting as a reference to land policy makers and land use planners.

High-resolution sea surface wind speeds of Super Typhoon Lekima (2019) retrieved by Gaofen-3 SAR

Gaofen-3(GF-3)is the first Chinese spaceborne multi-polarization synthetic aperture radar(SAR)instrument at C-band(5.43 GHz).In this paper,we use data collected from GF-3 to observe Super Typhoon Lekima(2019)in the East China Sea.Using a VH-polarized wide ScanSAR(WSC)image,ocean surface wind speeds at 100m horizontal resolution are obtained at 21:56:59 UTC on 8 August 2019,with the maximum wind speed,38.9 m·s^(-1).Validating the SAR-retrieved winds with buoymeasured wind speeds,we find that the root mean square error(RMSE)is 1.86 m·s^(-1),and correlation coefficient,0.92.This suggests that wind speeds retrieved from GF-3 SAR are reliable.Both the European Centre for MediumRange Weather Forecasts(ECMWF)fine grid operational forecast products with spatial resolution,and China Global/Regional Assimilation and Prediction Enhance System(GRAPES)have good performances on surface wind prediction under weak wind speed condition(<24 m·s^(-1)),but underestimate the maximum wind speed when the storm is intensified as a severe tropical storm(>24m·s^(-1)).With respect to SAR-retrieved wind speeds,the RMSEs are 5.24 m·s^(–1) for ECMWF and 5.17 m·s^(–1) for GRAPES,with biases of 4.16 m·s^(–1) for ECMWF and 3.84 m·s^(-1)for GRAPES during Super Typhoon Lekima(2019).