Spatial and Temporal Changes of Arable Land Driven by Urbanization and Ecological Restoration in China

Abstract

Since the industrial revolution, human activities have both expanded and intensified across the globe resulting in accelerated land use change. Land use change driven by China's development has put pressure on the limited arable land resources, which has affected grain production. Competing land use interests are a potential threat to food security in China. Therefore, studying arable land use changes is critical for ensuring future food security and maintaining the sustainable development of arable land. Based on data from several major sources, we analyzed the spatio-temporal differences of arable land among different agricultural regions in China from 2000 to 2010 and identified the drivers of arable land expansion and loss. The results revealed that arable land decreased by 5.92 million ha or 3.31%. Arable land increased in the north and decreased in the south of China. Urbanization and ecological restoration programs were the main drivers of arable land loss, while the reclamation of other land cover types (e.g., forest, grassland, and wetland) was the primary source of the increased arable land. The majority of arable land expansion occurred in the Northwest, but the centroid for grain production moved to northeast, which indicated that new arable land was of poor quality and did not significantly contribute to the grain production capacity. When combined with the current 'Red Line of Arable Land Policy' (RAL) and 'Ecological Redline Policy' (EPR), this study can provide effective information for arable land policymaking and help guide the sustainable development of arable land.

Riverine carbon export in the arid-semiarid Wuding River catchment on the Chinese Loess Plateau

“…Recent land use studies show that forest cover in this catchment occupies only 5% of the 285 total area (Wang et al, 2014), while the remaining is dominated by cropland or barren terrain. Using the ratios of autotrophic to heterotrophic soil respiration for forested and non-forested land suggested by Hanson et al (2000), Rh was estimated to be 183 g C m 2 year 1 or 554×10 10 g C year 1 in total.…”

Recommendations for IUCN Red List Conservation Status of the “Dryophytes immaculatus Group” in North East Asia

“…The species is however strongly associated with agricultural wetlands and the decrease is rice cultivation in PR China is expected to have drastically impacted the species. The area used for rice agriculture decreased by 11% since 1980 ( [90,91] herein), and it can be expected to follow the same pattern over the following decades [90]) due to the decrease in water availability [92,93]. Borzée et al [33] found "only two populations of D. immaculatus [ .…”

How to Evaluate Provincial Ecological Civilization Construction? The Case of Jiangsu Province, China

“…Yao and Chang [35] consider that energy construction is related to energy economy development, and the development of energy construction is key to ecological civilization development. In the studies on land management related to ecological civilization, soil-water protection and arable land management are considered to be two basic elements of agro-ecological civilization system [36]. Accordingly, Qiao and Wang [37] put forward a three-phase agro-ecological civilization system.…”