Multi‐Objective Optimization for Conservation Tillage Rotation Strategies in Black Soil Regions

ABSTRACT

Black soils in Northeast China are crucial for grain production and climate mitigation, but decades of intensive tillage and monoculture have degraded their physical, chemical and biological properties. Designing crop rotations that maintain farm income while restoring soil health has therefore become a central environmental management challenge. We develop a soil‐health‐based optimization framework for conservation tillage rotations that combines a composite soil health index (SHI), dynamic soil responses, and farm resource constraints to quantify trade‐offs between net present value (NPV) and soil health. We aggregate a soil indicator system into a composite SHI and construct nine representative archetype plots spanning high‐, medium‐ and low‐health conditions. A state‐transition model links annual changes in soil indicators to crop choices and conservation tillage, and is embedded in a multi‐period goal‐programming model over 3‐, 5‐ and 10‐year horizons. The optimized solutions reveal a consistent production–restoration zoning pattern. High‐ and medium‐health plots mainly support production‐oriented rotations, whereas low‐health plots receive more fallow/green manure years and achieve the largest soil‐health improvement. Across planning horizons, high‐health plots remain close to their initial SHI, while medium‐ and low‐health plots show clear recovery and remain above the ecological safety threshold. Robustness analyses further show that this pattern is stable under parameter uncertainty, alternative SHI weights, data‐driven plot classification, economic changes, unequal plot areas and alternative soil‐response functions. The framework links soil health assessment, dynamic soil evolution and representative‐plot optimization, providing decision support for differentiated conservation tillage and targeted restoration in degraded black soil regions.