Impact of land-use induced changes on agricultural productivity in the Huang-Huai-Hai River Basin

The water resource allocation is greatly influenced by the land use, agricultural productivity and farmers’ income. Therefore analyzing the impacts of land use changes on agricultural productivity and subsequent effects on farmer’s income is an important basis of the further study on the management mechanism and optimal water resource allocation. Taking the Huang-Huai-Hai River Basin as the study area, this study examined the impacts of conversion from cultivated land to built-up land from 2000–2005 and 2005–2008. Then the agricultural productivity was estimated with the Estimation System for Agricultural Productivity model, and the changes in agricultural productivity caused by land conversion were analyzed. Thereafter, Simultaneous Equations Model was used to analyze the impacts of the conversion from cultivated land to built-up land on the agricultural productivity and subsequent effects on farmer’s income. The results showed that: (1) The agricultural productivity was stable during the whole period, reaching about 2.84 ton/ha, 3.09 ton/ha and 2.80 ton/ha on average in 2000, 2005 and 2008, respectively, but the conversion from cultivated land to built-up land had important influence on the spatial pattern of agricultural productivity. (2) The land productivity, total power of agricultural machinery and the conversion from cultivated land to built-up land had an overall positive effect on the agricultural productivity. (3) The agricultural productivity and gross domestic product had positive influence on the farmers’ income, while the cultivated land area per capita and percentage of farming employee had negative influence, indicating that the farmer’s income was mainly contributed by non-agricultural income. These results in this study showed that optimal land use management can play an important role in promoting virtuous ecosystem cycle and sustainable socioeconomic development, which can also lay an important foundation for further research on the optimal allocation of water resources in the Huang-Huai-Hai River Basin.