Application of MaxEnt and Remote Sensing Technology in Grassland Locust Disaster Risk Monitoring: An Example from the Agricultural Heritage Systems of East Ujimqin Banner

The nomadic production system of East Ujimqi Banner is an important agro-cultural heritage system in China with high ecological, economic, landscape, technological and cultural values. However, in recent years the local area has been suffering from locust disaster and the grassland is facing unprecedented threats and challenges. East Ujimqin Banner was selected as the study area, and an occurrence risk index system of grassland locust was built based on remote sensing, soil, vegetation, and topography data as well as maximum entropy model (MaxEnt), combined with grassland locust growth characteristics, to analyze the influence of different habitat factors on grassland locust occurrence. The occurrence risk areas of grassland locust in the study area were then extracted and graded. The results show that the simulated results of MaxEnt model are good with an average AUC value of 0.826. The main factors determining the occurrence risk of grassland locust are surface temperature during the incubation period, surface temperature during the growing period, and precipitation during the egg-laying period. The high-risk areas are mainly located in Gadabchi town with the area of 920 km². The results of the study are beneficial to better protect the agro-cultural heritage of nomadic production system in East Ujimqi Banner and can provide technical support for disaster risk monitoring of other grassland agro-cultural heritage as well.