Classification of agricultural land consolidation types based on soil security to improve limiting factors adapted to local soil conditions

Agricultural land consolidation (ALC) is an effective tool to ensure national food security. The current ALC is a government-led systematic behavior with regional characteristics, most ALC types are classified according to difficulty without considering the safety of soil systems, resulting in randomness in the site selection of projects. Given the soil complexity, ensuring soil security (SS) is a prerequisite for efficiently completing ALC. ALC that gives full play to the soil's functional advantages is an effective means of securing SS. The main goal of this study is to establish a new set of technical processes for classifying the types of ALC from the perspective of SS, including the agricultural SS evaluation system and the identification method of land-improvable limiting factors. We used a generalized mean model to evaluate and analyze SS in multiple dimensions and identified 11 combinations of limiting factors in Wen County through the k-means clustering method. The combination of the limiting factor clustering area with the SS spatial distribution patterns guided five ALC types. When compared using the spatial pattern comparison method, the new ALC guideline avoids the singularity of ALC types, selects the field patch as the evaluation and decision-making unit, and improves the accuracy of land management measures. The results indicate that incorporating SS into ALC policy planning and decision-making can provide complex and multifaceted knowledge of factors affecting SS, and potential solutions to make agricultural soils safer, enabling higher quality and sustainability of agricultural land use.