Abstract: Based on the daily meteorological data of 35 national meteorological observation stations in Dabie Mountains from 1971 to 2020, the spatiotemporal distribution characteristics of spring frost disaster for tea plant were analyzed with trend surface interpolation and ArcGIS technology. According to the theory of natural disasters risk, the risk of hazard-formation factors, the exposure of hazard-formation environments, the vulnerability of hazard-affected bodies and the capability of hazard prevention and mitigation were taken as the evaluation factors, the weighted comprehensive evaluation method was used to construct the comprehensive risk assessment model of spring frost disaster. The risk zoning had been carried out based by the means of ArcGIS technology. The results showed that: (1) the number of occurrence days of spring frost in different grades decreased significantly from 1971 to 2020, with the average number of occurrence days of total, slight, moderate and severe spring frost being 9.6, 5.2, 3.0 and 1.4d respectively, and the climatic tendency rates being -1.45, −0.61, −0.54 and −0.30d·10y⁻¹. The number of occurrence days was positively correlated with altitude and latitude, and the downward trend of the number of occurrence days in the northern region was much more obvious than that in the southern region. (2) The high risk, medium risk and low risk areas of tea spring frost disaster accounted for 16.67%, 41.88% and 41.45% of the total area in the study region respectively. The high-risk areas were mainly located in the high mountainous regions with an altitude of more than 600m in Jinzhai, Yuexi, Huoshan, Yingshan and Xinyang, as well as scattered shady slopes (northern slopes); the medium-risk areas were mainly located in the mountainous region with an altitude of less than 600m and most of the low-altitude region at the northern foot of Dabie Mountains, and scattered shady slope (north slope) in the low-altitude region at the southern foot of Dabie Mountains; the low-risk region were mainly located in the low-altitude region at the southern foot of Dabie Mountains, and scattered sunny slope (south slope) in the low-altitude areas at the northern foot of Dabie Mountains. The refined assessment of the risk of tea spring frost could provide reference for optimizing the layout of the tea industry and enhancing disaster prevention and mitigation capabilities in Dabie Mountains.

Key words: Tea plant, Spring frost, Risk zoning, Dabie Mountains