Agroclimatic Regionalization

Project Background and Requirements

Since the 1980s, China’s agricultural production environment and climate environment have undergone tremendous changes, they are including：

The purpose of the third agroclimatic regionalization project proposed by China Meteorological Administration is to develop the software of Agriculture and Climate Distributed Information System (ACDIS) with new technologies, new methods and new data, to establish a monitoring system for the exploitation, utilization and protection of climate resources, and to carry out the resource level and three-dimensional, time and space in all directions. We should optimize the allocation of resources, give full play to regional climate advantages, seek benefits and avoid hazards, reduce the loss of climate disasters, and improve the overall benefits of resource development. It will provide decision-making basis for governments at all levels to guide agricultural production, adjust rural industrial structure, return farmland to forestry and prevent soil erosion, and serve local governments。

System Structure and Work Flow of Agricultural Climate Zoning Information System (ACDIS)

System workflow

According to the demand of application of new technologies such as “3S” in agricultural climate regionalization, the basic process of agricultural climate regionalization was established (Fig. 14-2)：

Application of “3S” in project

1. Spatial query and management of comprehensive factors in agroclimatic regionalization using GIS:ACDIS utilizes the basic functions provided by GIS tools to query and manage the climate resources input, processing and generation of other subsystems. The zoning products under different query conditions is generated as the thematic content of zoning, and then the logical query and management of the vector map are realized, raster map, DEM, annotation and attribute data of zoning products are based on geographical expression, as well as the comprehensive query and management of different maps and attribute data. It outputs the query results to the plotter or printer, or saves them in other formats。

2. Research on the model of small grid computing for climate resources by using GIS: The research on the small grid model of climate resources is a basic work of regionalization. On the basis of collecting climatic research results in mountainous areas and assisting with rainfall data of meteorological sentinels and hydrological stations, the geographic parameters (elevation, aspect and slope) of observation points can be quickly calculated and acquired through GIS platform. By means of statistical analysis, the province is divided into several climatic regions according to the statistical characteristic values and geographical characteristics of the elements. Statistical models for estimating climatic elements in each region are established respectively. Through verification and residual correction, the models are applied to the small grid calculation of climatic resources。

3. Application of GIS in Agricultural Climate Resources Analysis: It is to collect, manage and analyze climate resources by using GIS with spatial characteristics quantitatively, the idea, method and steps of GIS analysis of climate resources are established, including the establishment of digital elevation model, the establishment of GIS agricultural climate resources data, the establishment of spatial analysis model, the analysis and calculation of climate resources, the division of climate and quantitative analysis, etc。

4. Extract background information of agriculture to participate in regionalization calculation by using 3S: Agroclimatic regionalization is based on the requirements of climatic conditions and the geographical distribution characteristics of climatic resources in the process of crop growth and development. There are different types of land in the climatic plantable area of a certain crop. The different crops require different geographical environment. In order to guide agricultural production more effectively, non-meteorological factors were introduced into agricultural climate regionalization. The PH value of soil is often demanded in agricultural climate regionalization. According to the distribution of soil types, the distribution of soil PH value can be obtained. As a key index of regionalization, the regionalization has more practical significance. Soil classification map is used as a data layer in the operation of climatic resource data layer set by GIS, and the result of regionalization including soil type information is obtained。

5. Establishing an information service system integrating regionalization, resource dynamic monitoring and high-yield cultivation techniques by using GIS: A Web-based spatial allocation information system of climate resources for Two-line Hybrid Rice Seed production is developed by using GIS tools, which is sensitive to climate conditions. The regionalization will serve the selection of crop production bases, meteorological services for critical growth periods, and technical guidance for agricultural production。