Land-use change and socio-economic driving forces of rural settlement in China from 1996 to 2005

While urbanization has accelerated, the rural population in China has started decreasing in recent years. However, the expan- sion of rural settlement has not been sufficiently curbed. The questions of why this has happened and who has driven the land-use change （LUC） of rural settlement in China have aroused great interests among researchers. In this paper, it is suggested that population is not always a positive driving force for the LUC of rural settlement in China. Furthermore, socio-economic driving forces other than urbanization, population and industrialization are analyzed. On a national scale, the major driving forces are the per-capita rural housing area and the cultivated land area. On a regional scale, the main driving forces in the eastern China are the house-building capacity of rural households and the per-capita rural housing area; while in the central China, the main driving forces are rural housing investment, the proportion of primary industry employees in the rural working population, and the cultivated land area. For the western China, the main driving forces are rural register population and cultivated land area.     

Human driving mechanism of regional land use change: A case study of Karst Mountain areas of southwestern China

1INTRODUCTIONAstheadvancingofthestudyonhumandimensionofglobalenvironmentalchange,thechangeoflanduseisbecomingoneoftheresearchfocuses(IGBP/HDP,1993;IGBP/HDP,1995).Landusechange,combiningwithlandcoverchange,reflectstheinterdependenceofhumanandnature.Whilethestudyonlanduse/coverchangetouchesuponalotofquestion,thedrivingforceanditsdrivingmechanismaretwoofthekeyissues(IGBP/HDP,1995).Inthemeantime,theyarethenecessarybasisofdiscussingandforecastingquantitativelylanduse/coverchangebym…     

Sandy Desertification Status and its Driving Mechanism in North Tibet Plateau

As the main body of Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau, North Tibet Plateau is one of three major sandy desertification regions in China and also a representative sandy desertification zone of Qinghai-Tibet Plateau. Accordingly, it is an important region for the study of recent sandy desertification processes and formation mechanism. From such aspects as desertified land types, areas and distributions etc., this paper analyses in detail the sandy desertification status on North Tibet Plateau, and qualitatively and quantitatively deals with the main factors that affect recent sandy desertification processes and the driving mechanism. Research results show that North Tibet Plateau is an important sandy desertificafion region in China characterized with large desertified land areas, diversified types, high severity, extensive distributions and serious damages. Sandy desertification occurrence and development resulted from combined effects of natural factors, anthropogenic factors, natural processes and man-made processes, of which climatic change is the main driving force.     

Rehabilitation and Sustainable Use Pattern of Rocky-desertified Land in Southwest China＇s Poverty-stricken Karst Mountainous Areas ——A Case Study in Benggu Township, Xichou County, Yunnan, China

The rocky desert in a karst area directly causes the lack of soil, water and forest, hence leading to the poverty there. In 1990, the villagers from the Muzhe Village in Benggu Township, Xichou County, Yunnan declared a war against rocky desert in an attempt to ask the fields for more yields. They invented a distinctive land rehabilitation and sustainable use pattern called ＂transforming heaven and earth＂ that had been practiced in Southwest China＇s karst areas. The key mechanism of the pattern was to develop terraced fields with well conserved soil, water and fertility by exploding rocks in the fields, building stone walls, gathering more soil, and improving soil quality and productivity for the fields in combination with building of irrigation facilities and roads, as well as with forestation and agriculture structure adjustment. The purpose of the pattern was to alleviate poverty in the karst areas by improving soil productivity and promoting agricultural development. A typical area was studied with the help of Participatory Rural Appraisal （PRA） and the pattern was carried out there for fifteen years, have produced excellent ecological benefits and good economic benefits. Its application in the area approved that it was a sustainable land use pattern for rocky desert areas.     

DYNAMICS OF SANDY DESERTIFICATION AND ITS DRIVING FORCES IN WESTERN JILIN PROVINCE

By establishing the interpreting elements, and applying supervised classification, the sandy desertification was interpreted and the desertified land areas of the counties in the western Jilin Province in 1986 and in 2000 were obtained. Taking Tongyu and Qian‘an as examples, the natural driving forces and man-made driving forces were analyzed. The paper comes the conclusions that the material sources and the warming and dry climate are the internal causes of potential land descrtification: the irrational human activities, such as destroying forest and reclaiming the grassland, are the external causes of potential land desertification; while more rational human activities, such as planting trees and restoring grassland can reverse the land desertification. Furthermore, the countermeasures and suggestions for the development of agriculture and animal husbandry in the western Jilin Province are put forward.     

Establishment of rural housing land standard in China

On the basis of rural household survey in 12 provinces of China in 2005,this research built an econometrical model to find the area standard for rural housing land.This standard is expected to facilitate rural housing land administration,efficient and intensive housing land use and policy making.This research concludes:1) according to the household survey data,the average area for rural housing land in China is about 235.26 m 2,and the rural housing land mainly includes unused land(42.89%) and house construction land(37.76%) with the average floor-area ratio of 0.42;2) the indexes in the standard concern the factors such as location,landform,house form,household population and cultivated land area per farmer,which all have significant effects on rural housing land use;3) the reasonable area for rural housing land may be 150 m 2 in average before 2020,and the referential standards in different provinces are 120 m 2,130 m 2,140m 2,150 m 2,160 m 2,170 m 2,190 m 2,200 m 2,210 m 2,220 m 2,230 m 2 and 250 m 2 respectively;and 4) if there are less than two persons or more than five persons in a family,these standards need to be decreased or increased by 7%.When the cultivated land area per farmer is lower than the provincial average,the standards have to reduce by 3.5%.     

Soil erosion and its basic characteristics at karst rocky-desertified land consolidation area: A case study at Muzhe Village of Xichou County in Southeast Yunnan,China

Xichou County of Wenshan Zhuang and Miao Autonomous Prefecture in southeast Yunnan is one of the karst mountainous areas in southwest China showing typical rock desertification. During this study, we set up three soil erosion contrast test spots at Muzhe Village, Benggu Township, Xichou County, which was the birthplace of the Xichou rock-desertified land consolidation mode. The three spots included the terrace land spot (already consolidated land), sloping land spot (unconsolidated sloping land under rock desertification), and standard runoff spot (bare land spot). In 2007, a whole-year complete observation was conducted during the rainy season and "rainfall-erosion" data were obtained for 32 times. Our analysis showed that during the entire observation period, the number of the rainfalls that led to soil erosion accounted for 34.04% of the number of all rainfalls and the amount of the rainfalls that led to soil erosion accounted for 84.17% of the total amount of all rainfalls. The average erosive rainfall standard in the three test spots was 11.0 mm, slightly higher than the 10 mm standard that has been adopted all over China, but lower than the 12.7 mm standard of the US and the 13.0 mm standard of Japan. According to single-factor analysis, the soil loss in the sloping land spot (L2) and that in the bare land spot (L3) are correlated to certain extent to many other factors, including the single precipitation (P), rainfall intensity during the maximum ten minutes (I10), rainfall intensity during the maximum 20 minutes (I20), rainfall intensity during the maximum 30 minutes (I30), rainfall intensity during the maximum 40 minutes (I40), and rainfall intensity during the maximum 60 minutes (I60). Among these factors, they are of the highest relativity with I60. According to double-factor analysis, both L2 and L3 are of good relativity with P and I60. According to multi-factor analysis, L2 and L3 are also of good relativity with seven rainfall indexes, namely, P, Ia (average rainfall intensity), I10, I20, I30, I40, and I60, with their related coefficient R reaching 0.906 and 0.914, respectively. The annual soil losses in the three test spots are widely different: 1030.70 t/km2·a in the terrace land spot, which indicates a low-level erosion; 12913.22 t/km2·a in the sloping land spot (unconsolidated spot), some 12.5 times than that in the terrace land spot, which indicates an ultra-high-level erosion; and 19511.67 t/km2·a in the bare land spot, some 18.9 times than that in terrace land spot, indicating an acute erosion. These figures fully show that the Xichou rock-desertified land consolidation mode plays a significant role in soil conservation.     

STUDY ON THE SPATIAL PATTERNS OF LAND-USE CHANGE AND ANALYSES OF DRIVING FORCES IN NORTHEASTERN CHINA DURING 1990-2000

Land-use change is an important aspect of global environment change. It is, in a sense, the direct result of human activities influencing our physical environment. Supported by the dynamic serving system of national resources, including both the environment database and GIS technology, this paper analyzed the land-use change in northeastern China in the past ten years (1990–2000). It divides northeastern China into five land-use zones based on the dynamic degree (DD) of land-use: woodland/grassland — arable land conversion zone, dry land — paddy field conversion zone, urban expansion zone, interlocked zone of farming and pasturing, and reclamation and abandoned zone. In the past ten years, land-use change of northeastern China can be generalized as follows: increase of cropland area was obvious, paddy field and dry land increased by 74.9 and 276.0 thousand ha respectively; urban area expanded rapidly, area of town and rural residence increased by 76.8 thousand ha; area of forest and grassland decreased sharply with the amount of 1399.0 and 1521.3 thousand ha respectively; area of water body and unused land increased by 148.4 and 513.9 thousand ha respectively. Besides a comprehensive analysis of the spatial patterns of land use, this paper also discusses the driving forces in each land-use dynamic zones. The study shows that some key biophysical factors affect conspicuously the conversion of different land-use types. In this paper, the relationships between land-use conversion and DEM, accumulated temperature (⩾10°C) and precipitation were analysed and represented. We conclude that the land-use changes in northeast China resulted from the change of macro social and economic factors and local physical elements. Rapid population growth and management changes, in some sense, can explain the shaping of woodland/grassland — cropland conversion zone. The conversion from dry land to paddy field in the dry land — paddy field conversion zone, apart from the physical elements change promoting the expansion of paddy field, results from two reasons: one is that the implementation of market-economy in China has given farmers the right to decide what they plant and how they plant their crops, the other factor is originated partially from the change of dietary habit with the social and economic development. The conversion from paddy field to dry land is caused prmarily by the shortfall of irrigation water, which in turn is caused by poor water allocation management by local governments. The shaping of the reclamation and abandoned zone is partially due to the lack of environment protection consciousness among pioneer settlers. The reason for the conversion from grassland to cropland is the relatively higher profits of farming than that of pasturing in the interlocked zone of farming and pasturing. In northeastern China, the rapid expansion of built-up areas results from two factors: the first is its small number of towns; the second comes from the huge potential for expansion of existing towns and cities. It is noticeable that urban expansion in the northeastern China is characterized by gentle topographic relief and low population density. Physiognomy, transportation and economy exert great influences on the urban expansion. Foundation item: Under the auspices of Knowledge Innovation program Key Project of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (KZCX-2-308). Biography: LIU Ji-yuan (1947 - ), male, a native of Shanghai Municipality, professor, Director General of Institute of Geographical Sciences and Natural Resources Research, the Chinese Academy of Sciences. His research interests include environment and resources, remote sensing and geography.     

LAND USE CHANGE AND ITS SOCIO-ECONOMIC DRIVING FORCES UNDER STRESS OF PROJECT IN OLD RESERVOIR AREA —— Case Study of Linshui Reservoir Area of Dahonghe Reservoir in Sichuan Province

The old reservoir areas built in 1950s- 1970s left behind many socio-economic problems, because of the administrative backward migration and little migration fund, and all these problems would be tied to land. Based on interviewing with peasant households, combining land use survey and socio-economic statistical index, this paper analyzed land use change and its corresponding driving forces in Linshui reservoir area of Dahonghe Reservoir. Results showed that land use change in the reservoir area was mainly embodied on low-lying land submergence and migration requisition land. The former changed the land use patterns, and the latter mainly reconstructed original land property and made land over-fragmented. Cultivated land per capita was 0.041ha in this area, below the cordon of cultivated land per capita enacted by FAO. Currently, there were still 30.25% of peasant households being short of grain in trimester of one year, and there were 35.27% of people living under the poverty line. The conditions of eco-environmerit in Linshui Reservoir Area were worse, and healthy and sub-healthy eco-environment accounted for less proportion, composed of green belt around the reservoir area and paddy field ecosystem, and economic forest and orchard ecosystem, respectively. The stress of the reservoir project was macroscopic background to analyze the driving factors of land use change, and real underlying diving factor of the land use change in the area was the change of cultural landscape under the stress of reservoir project. The rapid increase of population was the key factor to induce the change of man-land relationship in the reservoir area, the low level of rural economy was the crucial factor to decide how migrants input for production, and the belief of migrants, influencing the land use patterns in a certain extent, was the inducing factor to keep land use stable. The low-lying submergence and infrastructure construction accompanied the reservoir project were leading factors driving land use change in the area, while changes in land use patterns, after the reservoir being built, were the responses of peasant households＇ behaviors to land use change.     

Present status and cause of land desertification in the Yarlung Zangbo River basin

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Spatial patterns and driving forces of land change in Tibetan-inhabited Three Rivers Headwaters region,China

The Three Rivers Headwaters Region(TRHR) plays a key role in regulating water supply and climate of East Asia. A comprehensive understanding of the processes and driving forces of the long-term land use dynamics of the TRHR is needed to guide sustainable land resource management and regional ecological conservation strategies. This study examined long-term land change patterns in the TRHR and investigated the driving forces of the change. First, Landsat TM/ETM+ images covering TRHR of four time points from 1987 to 2016 were used to derive land use patterns, and statistical metrics were applied to quantify the spatial and temporal changes. Second, Principal Component Analysis and correlation analysis were employed to analyze environmental and social-economic data to identify the driving forces of land use change. Third, potential influences of the religion of Tibetan Buddhism on land use change were explored using GIS analysis, questionnaire survey and field observation. Results showed that areas of barren land, agricultural land, and built-up land largely increased, while areas of grassland and forest greatly decreased, with the highest change rate occurring in the most recent decade of analysis(from 2007 to 2016). Among the three headwater regions, the Yellow River Headwater Region showed an overall higher changing speed than the other two headwater regions. The regional driving forces of change in TRHR includedsocial-economic development, climatic condition, pressure of population growth, and environmental protection activities. It was also found that Tibetan Buddhism can help slow down the changes caused by human activities.     

SUSTAINABLE USE OF LAND RESOURCE AND ITS EVALUATION IN COUNTY AREA－A Case of Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region,China

Sutainable use of natural resources is different from sustainable development.As the most important natural resource,sustainable use of land resource is the essential guarantee of sustainable development.The nature of sustainable use of land resource is to retain the quantity and productivity of land resource from generation to generation.The evaluaton of sustainable use of land resource is an important method to ensure land-use to get onto the sustainable track.Furthermore,building index system is the key of the evaluation.In view of tendency of the evaluation indexes chosen so widely,the evaluation indexes should include only three kinds in the researches on the evaluation of sustainable use of land resourece.The first is the stock and structure index of land resource,viz,Areas quantity structure of land resources.In China,it is especially paid attention to the per person index of landquantity and rate between cultivated land farmland.The second is the productive index of land,which includes the productivity,potentiality,stability and renewal situation of land.The third is the sustained index of land environment .On the evaluation research of areal level,we should lay particular emphasis on statistic indexes.With a case of Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region in China,the evaluation index system of sustainable land-use in county area has been built in this thesis,Using the weighted average method to calculate the means of sustainable land-use in each county,according to the land-using situation,all counties in the autonomous region have been divided into three types.(1)Sustainable Pattern contains 18 counties,which have higher land resource productivity,stronger sustained abilities of land environment.The economic benefits of land-using in these conties are obviously higher.These counties have gotten highly intensive farming,and tyey are all in the good circumstance.(2)Basically Sutained Pattern contains 48 counties,which productivity of land resource is of middle level.In part of counties are obviously higher.These counties can rapidly enter in a good circumstance.(3)Critically Sustained Pattern contains 14 counties,which are mostlyin the karst mountain areas.They have less stock of land resource,lower productivity and more extensive culitivation.The productivity of land renewing has been hindered.so it urgently need to be renovated.At last,the writers have explored the basic ways of sustainable use of land resource in Guangxi,China-(1)Retain the stock of land resource and strictly manage farmland uses.(2)Strengthen the value accounting of land resource,and control the farmland occupation of non-agricultural controction.(3)Depend on technology advanced,optimize the land-using structure,and promote the productive level.(4)Carry out land management all-round,and improve the ecological environment of land resource.(5)Enhance evaluation researche and land monitoring ,and promote the sustainable utilization level of land resource.     

Long-term dynamics of cultivated land resources and their driving forces of Guyuan City in upper reaches of Jinghe River

The land use patterns in Guyuan City, Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region of China, have changed greatly over the years, due to population growth and farming and stock raising development. This study, using 50-year statistical data of cultivated land and 14-year spatial data of land use pattern, analyzed the developmental stages, the character, and the spatial variance of farmland in the city, and discussed the driving forces of cultivated land changes based on empirical and conceptual statistical models. First, the change of cultivated land area went through different stages of rapid increase, fluctuating change, decrease and rapid decrease from 1949 to 2004, additionally, social and economic policies in different stages had an important impact on farmland variance. Second, from 1986 to 2000, the quantity of cultivated land increased, but its quality decreased. Third, social and economic factors are determinant factors in cultivated land transition. Five constructed paths explain cultivated land transition. Factors that have direct or indirect effects on farmland include the economy （Xeco）, the population （Xpop）, agricultural output （Xagr）, and scientific input （Xsci）. The sequence of impact was Xeco〉Xpop〉Xsci〉Xagr. Among all these impacts, Xeco was the major positive one, and Xpop was the major negative one. It is urgent to take measures or adopt a policy to stop the vicious cycle in eco-environment and agriculture production. Otherwise, negative patterns of farmland use will increase, and high-quality cultivated land will continue to decline.     

THE DRIVING FORCES OF LAND USE/COVER CHANGE INTHE UPSTREAM AREA OF THE NENJIANG RIVER

IINTRODUCTION niques in China（ZHANG。t al，1999； CHEN et al，2000b）．Since the early 1990s，he acceleration of land With its abundant forest，land and water re－use／cover change（LUL乙）has spurred renewed con－sources，the area of the Nenjlang River valley Is one ofcerns about the role ofland use change Indrlvingmany the lmpoFtant lumber products and commodity grainenvironmental problems．Research on the causes and ba…     

桂西南喀斯特-北部湾海岸带生态环境脆弱性时空分异与驱动机制研究

为揭示生态环境脆弱性的时空分异和驱动因子,本研究在山江海视角下,以桂西南喀斯特-北部湾海岸带为典型研究区,运用空间主成分分析法,地理探测器模型,结合生态环境脆弱性综合指数,系统分析桂西南喀斯特-北部湾海岸带生态环境脆弱性的时空分异特征及驱动机制.结果 表明:①研究区2008、2013、2018年脆弱性指数分别为0.54...     

Cultivated land resources and its development in the tropic and subtropic mountain areas of south china

Deqing County of Guangdong Province is located in the tropic and subtropic mountain areas of China. Its area of cultivated land from landuse survey is 40% larger than the statistical data. Of all cultivated land, owing to flood, waterlogging, drought and barren soil, the high yield land occupies only 30% and the mid-low yield land 70%, which is far more than the percent by statistics. Because the statistic area of cultivated land is less than the actual, the per unit area yield by statistics is higher than the actual. These situations generally exist in the tropic and subtropic mountain area of South China. So the measures to protect the high yield cultivated land strictly, to improve parts of the mid-low yield selectively, to adjust agricultural structure further, and to control soil erosion, are necessary to make best use of its advantages and bypass the disadvantages.     

Change of Cultivated Land and Its Implications on Food Security in China

1 Introduction FAO defined food security not only in terms of access to and availability of food, but also in terms of resources distribution to produce food and the purchasing power on food where it is not produced (Shi et al., 1996; Ning, 2004). Obviously, to guarantee everyone adequate food is the primary aim and most important content of food security (Xie et al., 1999). Thus, to increase food supply is a precondition for food security by domestic food production and international food t…     

Mountain Land Use Planning of Metropolitan Suburbs： the Case of the Jinyun Mountain and Its Surrounding area, Chongqing, China

Open space of metropolitan suburbs in mountain region, has been increasingly becoming the coupling mosaic structure of industrial actions and landscape behaviors. However, the local governments, when making land use planning, often aim at economic development, and rarely refer to the coordination of compatibilities and conflicts between industrial actions and landscape behaviors in the mosaic structure. In this study land use in the Jinyun Mountain and its surrounding area, Chongqing is adjusted by gray multi-objective programming approach and local-level decision-making process to cope with conflicts between objectives for human welfare and objectives for landscape conservation. The results indicate that： 1） the compatibilities and conflicts among different behavior characters and different landscape types result in the compatibilities of landscape to human behavior; 2） a land use planning in the study area is produced based on the sustainable land use and social-eco development, which pays more attention to the resources and environment constraints and economic objectives, and follows the distribution law of rare resources; 3） in the study area, cultivated land of 1,207.27 ha can meet the demands for food and byproducts by the residents there, orchard land and forestland of 632.55 ha, 2,276.61 ha, respectively can provide enough spaee for the local people to improve their living structure and meet their demands for reereational activities, and urban residential land, rural residential land, mining land and transportation land of 1107.60 ha, 120.27 ha, 162.48 ha, 100.91 ha, respeetively can satisfy the resident＇s eeonomie development and infrastructures; 4） the equilibrium among industrial actions, landscape accessibility and ecological conservation can be obtained by analyzing the possible impaets of human activities on landscape eeologieal proeess in open spaee of metropolitan suburbs in mountain areas.     

Characteristics and mechanism of agricultural transformation in typical rural areas of eastern China: A case study of Yucheng City,Shandong Province

Rural off-farm employment, rapid loss of agricultural land, and advanced technology popularization had led agricultural production in Chinese typical rural areas come at a critical transformation and upgrade stage. Based on sample survey data gathered from 401 households in Yucheng City, Shandong Province, this paper focuses on the characteristics and mechanism of agricultural transformation in typical rural areas of the eastern China. It was found that 74.3% of households surveyed kept at least one member engaging in off-farm employment, and 57.1% looked forward to expanding the operational scale of arable land, while just 13.7% had actually transferred their agricultural land. Since growing off-farm employment does not result in the collapse of traditional subsistence agriculture, therefore, agricultural production in Yucheng City is at an incomplete transformation phase from traditional small-holder farming to modern scale economy. It is caused by both macro environments and family characteristics, while urban-rural dual structure, imperfect rural development policy and agricultural technology popularization make peasant economy strengthen upon maintenance, and small-holder farming becomes peasant’s natural response owing to pluriactivity, local off-farm employment, reverse elimination, etc. In order to achieve smooth agricultural transformation of typical rural areas in the eastern China, it needs to promote professional differentiation among peasants, under clear policies adopted by central government. Providing comprehensive services for agricultural production and improving production skills and knowledge of farmers who are still living in the countryside will effectively stimulate the process of agricultural transformation.