A sustainability assessment of a high-yield agroecosystem in Huantai County,China

Sustainable agricultural development is a perennial issue for agricultural researchers, government managers, and policy makers worldwide, but especially in developing countries. In China, farms in Shandong Province epitomize modern agriculture and play a vital role in providing food for the burgeoning population. However, Chinese agriculture is being challenged by declining resources and environmental deterioration resulting from modern farming practices. China must establish an efficient agricultural sustainability index (ASI) to evaluate agricultural conditions and offer recommendations for sustainable development. Here, we use Huantai County, Shandong Province to test a regionalscale ASI from social, economic and ecological factors that includes 11 sustainability indicators. To further evaluate the complex agroecosystem, we employed the analytic hierarchy process (AHP) and AMOEBA methods to assess agricultural sustainability from 1982 to 2003. The results show that environmental problems, especially groundwater depletion, are limiting regional sustainable development.