Abstract:

Grassland is a complex socio-economic ecological composite system and a valuable resource providing many ecosystem services. However， due to climate change and excessive human usage， grassland has become more and more vulnerable to ecological instability in recent years. One problem needing to be addressed is the control of rodent populations in grassland. Poisoning of rodents has also reduced the populations of natural predators， both by effects of the poison directly， and depriving natural predators of food indirectly. The result has often been a serious rebound of rodent populations after initial control by poisoning， therefore， emphasis is now moving towards ‘green’ control of rats allowing them to exist in the ecosystem without population explosion events. It is urgent to develop new models to refine and evolve this new approach to rodent control. In response to that need， we developed an objective TOPSIS （technique for order preference by similarity to an ideal solution） model to examine the status of rodent control across 14 provinces， accounting for 99% of grassland area of China. Of the 14 provinces， six were classified as major grassland provinces with 95% of China’s grassland between them， and the other eight as minor grassland provinces. The results showed that rodent eradication program evaluation scores were highest for investment in prevention and control， followed by scores for outcomes， with scores for infrastructure and organizational development the lowest. From 2019 to 2021， the overall score across the three areas evaluated was generally low， rating as is average or poor. Interestingly， minor grassland provinces performed significantly better than major grassland provinces in the overall evaluation. This study provides objective data for adjusting resource allocation for improved outcomes in the process of grassland rodent management and prevention of harmful population explosion events.

Key words: TOPSIS model, rodent pest on grassland, rodent control, quality evaluation