The forecast of cultivate land quantity based on Grey-Markov model: A case study of Jiangsu Province

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to employ the Grey-Markov Chain Model for the scale prediction of cultivated land and took an empirical research with the case of Jiangsu province.

Design/methodology/approach

Along with China’s industrialization and urbanization accelerated, a large number of cultivated land converse into construction land. The change of utilization of cultivated land concerns national food security and sustainable development of economy and society. Due to the fact that the different investigation methods of arable land usually cause a uncertain. The Grey-Markov model combines the Grey GM(1,1) and Markov chain, with two advantages of dealing with poor information and long-term and volatile series. A numeric example of scale prediction of cultivated land in Jiangsu province is also computed in the third part of the paper.

Findings

The results show that the Grey-Markov Chain Model has a higher prediction accuracy compared with GM (1,1), which is a reliable guarantee for the change of cultivated land resources.

Practical implications

The forecast of cultivated land can provide useful information for the general land use planning.

Originality/value

The paper confirmed the feasibility of the Grey-Markov model in scale prediction of cultivated land.

Citation

Huan, H. and Tan, Q.-m. (2015), "The forecast of cultivate land quantity based on Grey-Markov model: A case study of Jiangsu Province", Grey Systems: Theory and Application, Vol. 5 No. 1, pp. 127-136. https://doi.org/10.1108/GS-03-2012-0016