Land use/cover changes in the Oriental migratory locust area of China: Implications for ecological control and monitoring of locust area

•An integrated patch-based habitat suitability assessment method for nationwide locust area extraction is proposed.•Dynamic changes of locust area and its evolution in China from 1995 to 2017 are analyzed.•The influences of land use/cover change on locust area evolution are quantified.•Suggestions for locust area management and monitoring are provided.