In recent years, the sustainable utilization of China’s arable land has been confronted with several challenges. The China government has been very strict in arable land protection, and a package of ...policies and measures have been promulgated. All these endeavors are of great significance for proposing an innovative policy system for sustainable land use in China. However, above stated policies are all designed from the perspective of space control with the purpose of reducing arable land loss or increasing arable land area, few policies have been designed from the perspective of utilization control, namely guide the actual arable land farming in sustainable ways and constraint unreasonable land use behavior such as overuse, rough use, land abandonment. In this paper, we analyze spatial distribution of average land-use intensity (ALUI) at the county-level in Mainland China, which can be used as a significant index for evaluating the rationality of arable land use and providing effective decision-making supporting information for design of regional arable land protection policy. Based on the experimental results, there is still considerable room for yield improvement as the ALUI of ∼73.1 % counties are lower than 0.7 while the 53.60 % counties are lower than 0.6. Furthermore, the ALUI dataset shows significant global spatial autocorrelation characteristic. Boundaries of regions that aggregated by counties with high ALUI are more consistent with that of provincial administrative districts, comparing with that of sub-standard farming system regions. On the other hand, counties with low ALUI are mostly cluster in mountains, hills, or plateaus, where grain yield is mainly limited by regional hydrothermal conditions. In addition, counties with different ALUI status have been divided into six classes, using k-means clustering algorithm. This will facilitate the understanding of appropriate arable land protection and utilization paths for different regions and the rethinking of current support policies on farmland protection.
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•Present arable land-use intensity of mainland China at county scale.•Analyze spatial aggregation characteristics of arable land-use intensity.•Key points for regional arable land protection were found among different counties.•Present a new, output-oriented measure for arable land-use intensity.
In recent years, the sustainable utilization of China’s arable land has been confronted with several challenges. The China government has been very strict in arable land protection, and a package of policies and measures have been promulgated. All these endeavors are of great significance for proposing an innovative policy system for sustainable land use in China. However, above stated policies are all designed from the perspective of space control with the purpose of reducing arable land loss or increasing arable land area, few policies have been designed from the perspective of utilization control, namely guide the actual arable land farming in sustainable ways and constraint unreasonable land use behavior such as overuse, rough use, land abandonment. In this paper, we analyze spatial distribution of average land-use intensity (ALUI) at the county-level in Mainland China, which can be used as a significant index for evaluating the rationality of arable land use and providing effective decision-making supporting information for design of regional arable land protection policy. Based on the experimental results, there is still considerable room for yield improvement as the ALUI of ∼73.1 % counties are lower than 0.7 while the 53.60 % counties are lower than 0.6. Furthermore, the ALUI dataset shows significant global spatial autocorrelation characteristic. Boundaries of regions that aggregated by counties with high ALUI are more consistent with that of provincial administrative districts, comparing with that of sub-standard farming system regions. On the other hand, counties with low ALUI are mostly cluster in mountains, hills, or plateaus, where grain yield is mainly limited by regional hydrothermal conditions. In addition, counties with different ALUI status have been divided into six classes, using k-means clustering algorithm. This will facilitate the understanding of appropriate arable land protection and utilization paths for different regions and the rethinking of current support policies on farmland protection.
Evaluation of arable land ecosystem services capacity and arable land-use intensity (ALUI) is important for recognising key regional factors that impact arable land attributes changes, which is ...crucial for planning sustainable patterns of arable land use. The chronic lack of coordination between these two types of evaluation studies has made it hard to provide enough information for developing arable land-use management and control policies. Here, we generated a 1-km-grid map of arable land potential yield and county-level arable land productive-capacity. The impact of land-use and land-cover change on county-level total arable land productive-capacity during 1990–2010 had been estimated. Then we determined the aggregation–distribution characteristics of four indexes (i.e. average arable land potential yield, average ALUI, total arable land area and arable land productive-capacity reserves) at the county-level by the k-means algorithm to assess the regional coordination between arable land productive-capacity protection and arable land use. The results show that during 1990–2010, land-use change led to arable land productive-capacity decreases in 2007 of China’s 2733 counties (nearly 73.5% of the total counties’ count). Most of these counties are in central and southern China, and their corresponding arable land productive-capacity decrement rates are generally < 6.15%. Counties with decrement rates > 6.15% are mainly in the Yangtze and Pearl River delta regions. The geographical detector shows that county-level arable land-area change is a primary factor that drives county-level arable land productive-capacity increase. Its determinant power can be quantified as 74.154%. In contrast, its determinant power to county-level arable land productive-capacity decrease is only 38.542%, which demonstrates that occupy high-capacity arable land and supplement low-capacity arable land have a greater role in causing reduction of county arable land productive-capacity. Total arable land productive-capacity and use intensity show only slight determinant power to county-level arable land productive-capacity decrease. It indicates that insufficient attention has been paid to the protection of arable land productive-capacity and the farmers’ willingness in the implementation of China requisition-compensation balance policy. The aggregation–distribution characteristics show that arable land productive-capacity protection is in coordination with arable land use for most of the provinces in China. Arable land with high or medium potential yield tends to be used at high or medium intensity. A lack of coordination is most evident in the insufficient ALUI, particularly in seven of the thirteen major grain-producing provinces. Other evidence of weak coordination is in the low potential yield versus high farming conditions and willingness, where unsuited planting modes should be prevented. Lastly, challenges for exploring sustainable arable land use path have been discussed. This study is greatly instructive for recognising interrelations between natural conditions and arable land-use patterns and for exploring shortcomings that impede regionally sustainable arable land use.
•Impact of LUCC on county-level arable land productivity during 1990–2010 is estimated.•Difference in determinant power to arable land productivity decrease and increase is detected.•Regional coordination between arable land productivity and use intensity is assessed.•Correlation between arable land potential yield and its distance to urban is assessed.•Generate county-level normalised total arable land productive capacity dataset.
The “requisition-compensation balance policy” is a basic arable land protection policy promulgated by the Chinese government to maintain the dynamic balance of the total arable land. Since the ...implementation of the “requisition-compensation balance policy”, its important role in the conservation of arable land has been widely noted. Multiple studies indicate the effectiveness of the policy by estimating the quantity and quality change of arable land. In addition, the defects and negative externalities of the policy are disputed. The overall goal of this study is to estimate the provincial-level effectiveness of the “requisition-compensation balance policy” in mainland China in two periods (i.e., 2000—2010; 2010—2020) from four perspectives: arable land quantity dynamic balance; arable land productivity balance; farming distance; and sustainability of arable land use. The results showed that, first, the arable land quantity balance was achieved during 2000–2020 from a national perspective. There are still 19–23% of provinces have failed to reach the quantity balance. Second, the decrease in China’s total arable land productivity was exacerbated from 9612.1 thousand tons. to 31254.6 thousand ton. The average potential yield balance index was less than 1 for nearly all provinces during 2000–2010 and became even worse in the next decade because of occupying superior arable land while compensating for inferior arable land. The conservation of arable land productivity has become more important than the conservation of quantity. Third, due to the lack of constraints on the farming distance changes in the “requisition-compensation balance policy”, most provinces convert arable land around urban and rural areas to built-up land while replenishing land far from residential areas without providing adequate agricultural infrastructure, which leads to an increase in the cost of farming and consequently to an increase in the marginalization of arable land. During 2010–2020, the average farming distance of compensated arable land at the provincial level reached 2–7 times that of occupied arable land. However, the average farming distance of the whole arable land at the provincial level decreased by 3.82–63.88% during the same period. This contradiction is mainly due to increasing marginalization and opportunity costs resulting in arable land with high farming distance (including arable land that was compensated in the past) to be used with low intensity or even abandoned and thus identified as other land use types by remote sensing classification models. This factor outweighed that of “occupy nearby arable land while compensating farther one”, resulting in a reduction in the provincial average farming distance. Fourth, the percentage of sustainable compensated arable land in most provinces was lower than 70%. This indicated that the utilization and protection of arable land in these provinces was insufficiently implemented and monitored. Challenges along optimization of the “requisition-compensation balance policy” were discussed from two respects: data, theory and methodology and policy design and implementation. The authors argue that a more comprehensive “requisition-compensation balance policy” should be designed considering not only the quantity and productivity of arable land but also the farming distance, sustainability and ecological protection. A differentiated regulation mechanism of arable land requisition compensation in trans-provincial areas should be formulated. This study can provide guidance for optimizing the implementation of regional arable land protection and can also provide a reference for other countries to protect arable land.
•Estimate effectiveness of the arable land requisition-compensation balance policy in mainland China in the last 20 years.•Estimate quantity and productivity change of arable land in mainland China in the last 20 years.•The average farming distance of the compensated arable land was 2–7 times that of the occupied one.•The average farming distance decrease 3.82–63.88% because of explicit or implicit farmland abandoned.•There is a lack of control over the sustainable use of compensated arable land in mainland China.
With significant economic development over the last several decades in China, urban land has increasingly sprawled and encroached upon arable land and rural settlements. In this context, this paper ...explores the dynamic spatiotemporal characteristics and trends of rural settlement loss and arable land depletion in the process of urban expansion, which could offer a theoretical basis and scientific support for further research of rural development and restructuring. The conclusions of the study are summarized as follows: (1) approximately 80% of urban growth has been at the expense of rural settlements (23.42%) and arable land (57.14%) in Beijing; and (2) an obvious rural non-agriculturization-intensive belt was observed in spatial units from 1985 to 2010, primarily distributed between the Fourth Ring Road and the Fifth Ring Road. Non-agriculturization is defined here as the conversion of land formerly used for agricultural purposes, including rural settlements and arable land, to more densely developed urban uses. (3) The spatial distribution of fastest, fast and medium non-agriculturization began to shift from the northern area to the southern area after 2005. (4) The curves of variation of rural non-agriculturization intensity under urbanization along the urban-rural gradient presented as inverted “U” shapes leading away from the socioeconomic center, while that along the motorways displayed exponential decay. Adhering to the policy of urbanization strategy will be essential for rural restructuring in China.
•Spatiotemporal characteristics of rural settlements loss and arable land depletion during urbanization was explored.•Different degrees of rural non-agriculturalization were zoned.•Spatial modes of rural non-agriculturalization along the urban-rural gradient and the motorways were proposed.
Arable land health (ALH) and arable land productivity (ALP) are crucial indicators of agricultural ecological functionality and sustainability. The shift of grain‐producing regions in Northwest China ...has led to arable land degradation, which endangers both food production and sustainable development. Several studies have focused on arable land quantity, distribution, and regional features, but ALH and sustainable ALP have received little attention. For the first time, we investigated the spatio‐temporal distribution and coupling connection between ALH and ALP in Northwest China (NC) using soil health indicators. Our study revealed the following key findings: (1) A minimal dataset of 12 indicators can efficiently replace the total dataset to evaluate the arable land health index in NC. (2) Over the last 20 years, the high and sub‐high grades of ALH increased by 536.8% and 222.6%, respectively, with a shift toward the northwest. During the specified period, ALH with low health and underutilized grade decreased by 46.01% and 69.4%, respectively, primarily in Xinjiang and Inner Mongolia. At the county level, ALP increased by 26%, primarily in northern Xinjiang and southern Gansu. 71% of counties remained stable, while only 3% experienced a decline. (4) The relationship between ALH and ALP were divided into six coupled groups that form an inverted “U” shape. High‐production areas were generally strongly linked, while low‐production areas were weakly coupled. Over the last 20 years, NC has seen significant improvements in ALH, coinciding with an increase in ALP. However, in most cases, the relationship between ALH and ALP were negative or weak.
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•This work analyzes Mainland China’s arable land transfers embodied in foreign trade.•The relations, pressures and structures of embodied arable land are depicted.•Mainland China is ...the driving factor for arable land use in ASEAN, EU27 and Africa.•Most economies are Mainland China’s production-based supplier of embodied arable land.•Arable land transfers from regions with low per capita arable land area are identified.
The process of globalization increases spatial separation of basic resources in terms of demand and supply across multiple countries/regions, thereby leading to the shift of environmental pressure mainly triggered by population expansion and economic growth via global supply chains. To comprehensively analyze Mainland China’s arable land use issues, the present work illustrates its arable land transfers embodied in foreign trade based on a multi-regional input-output analysis. In total, the trade volume of Mainland China’s arable land transfers is revealed in magnitude up to 70% of its direct arable land area. With a distinction between production- and consumption-based transfers, Mainland China exports 27.18Mha (million hectares) of embodied arable land to other economies, while it imports 48.35Mha of embodied arable land, making it a large force for agricultural industry development and arable land utilization in regions such as ASEAN, EU27, and Africa. The relations, pressures, and structures of embodied arable land related to Mainland China are clearly depicted from the global perspective. With detailed embodied arable land transfer profiles, it is practical to comprehensively analyze Mainland China’s arable land utilization via supply chains from the global perspective for essential policy implications in reasonably reshaping Mainland China’s economic structures and trade patterns.
In this study, a non-radial directional distance function (NDDF) approach is used to evaluate and analyze the green efficiency of arable land use of China's 30 provinces and cities during the period ...1995–2013. The study finds that the green efficiency of arable land use in China shows a trend that is first declining and then increasing. Northeast China is the most efficient, followed by the southwestern region, the eastern region, and the northwestern region; the central region has the lowest efficiency. At the provincial level, the green efficiency of arable land use in Guangdong is the highest, followed by Guangxi and Jilin. The green efficiency of arable land use in Heilongjiang, Beijing, and Tibet is relatively low. All the environmentally green production technology leaders come from the northeastern, northwestern, and southwestern regions. The results of an analysis of dynamic efficiency change show that the technology change for arable land use was significantly higher than the efficiency change. This reflects that the country's attempts to improve production technology as well as its policies for the improvement of environmental conditions had played a significant role. Even though these practices are at the expense of short-term efficiency, they are conducive to long-term technological progress.
•Non-radial directional distance function (NDDF) approach was used to assess China's green efficiency of arable land use.•Green efficiency of arable land use in China decreased and then increased during 1995–2013.•Technology change was higher than efficiency change in this period.•This reflects improvement in production technology and environmental conditions.•Future work involves the impact of green efficiency of arable land use in various regions.
