Abstract: As a method of habitat evaluation, habitat suitability index (HSI) model has been widely used in the programming and evaluation of land management. In this paper, the development and application of HSI model in wildlife habitat evaluation were summarized, with the focus on the establishment of HSI model by 3S technologies and the current situation in habitat evaluation by integrating HSI model with other ecological models. The applications of various statistical approaches in evaluating and testing HSI model, as well as the limitations and pitfalls of HSI model, were discussed, and the perspectives of HSI model in wildlife habitat evaluation were approached.

Key words: Conversion of Farmland to Forests(CFF), Optimized model, Mechanism analysis, Hill-gully subregion of Loess Plateau