Journal of Geographical Sciences >
The changing patterns of cropland conversion to built-up land in China from 1987 to 2010
Author: Ju Hongrun (1990-), PhD, specialized in land use and GIS. E-mail: juhr@radi.ac.cn
Received date: 2017-06-30
Accepted date: 2017-09-12
Online published: 2018-11-20
Supported by
National Major Science and Technology Program for Water Pollution Control and Treatment, No.2017ZX07101001
Copyright
Over the past few decades, built-up land in China has increasingly expanded with rapid urbanization, industrialization and rural settlements construction. The expansions encroached upon a large amount of cropland, placing great challenges on national food security. Although the impacts of urban expansion on cropland have been intensively illustrated, few attentions have been paid to differentiating the effects of growing urban areas, rural settlements, and industrial/transportation land. To fill this gap and offer comprehensive implications on framing policies for cropland protection, this study investigates and compares the spatio-temporal patterns of cropland conversion to urban areas, rural settlements, and industrial/transportation land from 1987 to 2010, based on land use maps interpreted from remote sensing imagery. Five indicators were developed to analyze the impacts of built-up land expansion on cropland in China. We find that 42,822 km2 of cropland were converted into built-up land in China, accounting for 43.8% of total cropland loss during 1987-2010. Urban growth showed a greater impact on cropland loss than the expansion of rural settlements and the expansion of industrial/transportation land after 2000. The contribution of rural settlement expansion decreased; however, rural settlement saw the highest percentage of traditional cropland loss which is generally in high quality. The contribution of industrial/transportation land expansion increased dramatically and was mainly distributed in major food production regions. These changes were closely related to the economic restructuring, urban-rural transformation and government policies in China. Future cropland conservation should focus on not only finding a reasonable urbanization mode, but also solving the “hollowing village” problem and balancing the industrial transformations.
Key words: cropland loss; urban growth; rural settlement; industrial land; transportation land; China
JU Hongrun , ZHANG Zengxiang , ZHAO Xiaoli , WANG Xiao , WU Wenbin , YI Ling , WEN Qingke , LIU Fang , XU Jinyong , HU Shunguang , ZUO Lijun . The changing patterns of cropland conversion to built-up land in China from 1987 to 2010[J]. Journal of Geographical Sciences, 2018 , 28(11) : 1595 -1610 . DOI: 10.1007/s11442-018-1531-8
Figure 1 The relationship between built-up land expansion and cropland loss |
Figure 2 Distribution of cropland and built-up land and the agricultural regions in China in 2010 |
Table 1 The area of cropland converted into built-up land of China during 1987-2010 |
Cropland to built-up land (km2) | 1987-1995 | 1995-2000 | 2000-2005 | 2005-2010 | 1987-2010 |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Urban | 5440 | 1265 | 6451 | 5945 | 19101 |
Rural settlement | 5536 | 2184 | 3609 | 3534 | 14863 |
Industrial/transportation land | 966 | 718 | 2517 | 4658 | 8859 |
Total | 11942 | 4167 | 12576 | 14137 | 42822 |
Figure 3 Temporal changes of SCB (the speed of cropland lost to built-up land) and PCB (the proportion of cropland lost to each built-up land type in the cropland lost to total built-up land) in China from 1987 to 2010 |
Figure 4 Spatial patterns of areas of cropland lost to built-up land of China in 5 km × 5 km grids |
Figure 5 Spatial patterns of dominant types of cropland conversion to built-up land of China in 5 km × 5 km grid cells |
Figure 6 Spatio-temporal pattern of Ccrop in China (the contribution of built-up land expansion to cropland loss) |
Figure 7 Spatio-temporal pattern of Dcrop in China (the dependence of built-up land expansion on cropland loss) |
Figure 8 Spatio-temporal pattern of Tcrop (the percentage of traditional cropland in the cropland lost to built-up land) |
The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.
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