Site selection for Haloxylon ammodendron plantation based on soil factors

The success of plantation, establishment, and growth of trees and shrubs is an important concern in afforestation efforts. There have been extensive efforts to use Haloxylon ammodendron in many desert areas throughout the world in desert combating projects, but these efforts have not always been successful, despite high costs. In this study, we propose a new application of fuzzy decision-making method for selecting suitable sites for the growth of this species. We determine, based on available autecological studies, the most effective factors in desert habitats, and a fuzzy membership function is designed for each of the factors. A suitability index is constructed by unifying the fuzzified factors. This model is then applied to an actual plantation area to evaluate the suitability of different parts of this trial area. Finally, the predicted results are compared to the actual rate of success, based on the canopy cover percentage. The coefficient of determination for the observed canopy cover percentage plotted against the predicted suitability values is higher than 98%, which demonstrates that the presented fuzzy decision-making approach is potentially a powerful tool in site selection for this and, probably, other species.