Grassland construction and utilization in five provinces in northwestern China

The five northwestern provinces and municipalities including Shaanxi, Gansu, Qinghai, Ningxia and Xinjiang have large areas of grassland which have great impacts on grassland development in China. In order to enhance the protection and rational utilization of grassland resources, grassland construction and utilization were analyzed using the K-means Cluster which was multivariate statistic method based on the relevant data in China Statistical Yearbook 2013. The seven indices including the utilized ratio of grassland area, the accumulated grassland reserved area ratio, the newly increased grassland area ratio this year, the rodent damage area ratio in grassland, the rodent management area ratio in grassland, the pest damage area ratio in grassland and the pest management area ratio in grassland were calculated. The results indicated that the rodent damage area ratio in grassland, the rodent harnessed area ratio in grassland and the pest damage areas ratio in grassland showed significance among all seven influencing factors(P0.05), meanwhile, the significance of the rodent harnessed area ratio in grassland was the highest among these three significant influencing factors. However, the pest harnessed area ratio in grassland was not significant(P0.05). The results suggested that rodent control had achieved stage results, but the long-term management still need to be strengthened. The effective pest control was urgent and has become a top priority.