Rural Transformation Driven by Households’ Adaptation to Climate, Policy, Market, and Urbanization: Perspectives from Livelihoods–Land Use on Chinese Loess Plateau

Abstract

Regional rural systems respond to global environmental change with multi-dimensional transformation. However, in the widespread traditional agricultural areas, rural transformation is often seen as invisible and sometimes remains hidden by official statistics of urbanization and industrialization at a regional level. The study implemented field survey and ethnography methods, exploring the trajectory and driving paths of rural transformation in traditional agricultural areas. The findings indicate that the dominant livelihood experienced a transitional trajectory from traditional farming to jujube-oriented and then to a non-farming livelihood. Furthermore, the land use showed an eco-transformation from farmland to forest land, and from cultivated land gradually to uncultivated land. We also find that the household behaviors actively or passively adapted to environmental effects, such as climate change, market change, urbanization impact, and policy regulation, and then drove non-agricultural transformation and eco-transformation in traditional agricultural areas. Based on these findings, the study confirms that there is a clear rural transformation in traditional agricultural areas, and reveals that the Loess Plateau turned green from bottom to top. Finally, the study calls to take the road of green transformation, and proposals are presented in terms of ecology, livelihood, and industry.

Contributions and Resistances to Vulnerability of Rural Human Settlements System in Agricultural Areas of Chinese Loess Plateau since 1980

“…The annual precipitation and the precipitation in the mature period of jujube fruit in Jia County have shown an obvious upward trend since 1980 [66]. Since 2010, the study area has experienced a high incidence of summer rainstorms, autumn rains and other disaster events.…”

“…The large amount of land abandoned or abandoned fertilization has contributed to the natural recovery for the ecological system in the Loess Plateau agricultural area. Since 2010, in the study area, under the background of global climate change, autumn precipitation has increased significantly, and heavy rainfall disasters have become the main disasters of natural systems, while drought and wind-sand disasters have almost disappeared [66]. At present, the production environment is less disturbed by drought and sandstorms, as perceived by farmers.…”

“…Jia County is located in the middle reaches of the Yellow River, the northern farming-pastoral ecotone, which belongs to both the national key ecological function area and the key practice area for poverty alleviation (Figure 1). Since 1980, Jia County has faced common problems of traditional agricultural areas on the Loess Plateau, such as frequent natural disasters, topographic and ecological constraints, declining villages under the impact of urbanization, as well as individual problems of unsustainable livelihoods in date palm forests under the disturbance of climate change [66,67]. Authors explored the evolution of the vulnerability of RHSS since 1980, using Jia County as a typical area of traditional farming areas on the Loess Plateau.…”

“…At the same time, increased precipitation during the maturity of jujube fruit led to mold and yield reduction, which together with the shrinking of the acquisition market led to the fact that the representative jujube livelihood has become unsustainable [66]. Under the multiple perturbations of climate change and the shrinking market size, as well as high returns from off-farm employment, farmers travel to abandon farming and fertilizer behaviors, and young laborers shift to off-farm industries [80].…”

“…On the other hand, the traditional farming areas have long been disturbed by climate change, lack of water resources, frequent natural disasters and fragmented landscapes [63][64][65]. Additionally, the local development has shown the characteristics of low industrialization of agriculture, lagging development of non-agricultural industries and reliance on national financial support [66]. In addition, under the siphoning of urbanization, rural capital and resources are continuously lost, and the vulnerability of rural systems such as hollowing out has become obvious [50,67].…”