Abstract
Land change science has emerged as a fundamental component of global environmental change and sustainability research. Still, much remains to be learned before scientists can fully assess future roles of land use/cover changes (LUCC) in the functioning of the earth system and identifying conditions for sustainable land use. The objective of this chapter is to gain a better understanding of the complex interactions of human and natural drivers underlying LUCC. We do so by developing and estimating a novel structural model of land use and by using spatially explicit longitudinal observations from the upper Yangtze basin of China. Our analysis focuses on the multiple dimensions of agriculture—not only cropland use itself, but also grain production, soil erosion, and related technical change; and our data cover 31 counties over four time periods from 1975 to 2000. Our results show that technical change plays an important role in supplying food on a limited cropland; limiting cropland expansion in turn reduces soil erosion, which then benefits grain production in the longer term. It is also found that policies and institutions have significant impacts on land use and the status of soil erosion. Together, these results carry some great implications to sustainable land use and ecosystem management.
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Notes
- 1.
To be sure, intensive farming has its own environmental problems as well, such as soil salinity and toxicity due to improper chemical applications (Ruttan, 2001).
- 2.
Note that technical change and technical adoption are conceptually the same, but they are used interchangeably in this chapter.
- 3.
Our prior knowledge indicated that elevation, varying from 295 meters (m) to 6109 m for the study region with a mean of 3070 m, is a more meaningful variable, compared to, for instance, slope or range. Because elevation does not change over time, through, it will not be listed in the table of summary statistics of variables below.
- 4.
According to the government statistics, included in agriculture production value are the values of animal husbandry and forestry as well as that of farming.
- 5.
Multiple cropping refers to the situation where the cultivated land is used more than once a year. It is thus measured with the ratio of the total sown area divided by the total cultivated area. As such, it enhances the land-use intensity.
- 6.
Field visits indicate that plastic sheeting in high elevations can effectively raise soil temperature and maintain moisture, resulting in greater probability of crop success and higher grain yield.
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Acknowledgments
This article has been accepted for publication in Sustainability Science. The authors appreciate comments made by the journal reviewers and Editor, as well as Jiaguo Qi, Larry Leefers, Karen Potter-Witter, and other colleagues. They also are grateful to the US National Science Foundation for funding.
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Yin, R., Xiang, Q. (2009). An Integrative Approach to Modeling Land Use Changes: The Multiple Facets of Agriculture in the Upper Yangtze Basin. In: Yin, R. (eds) An Integrated Assessment of China's Ecological Restoration Programs. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-90-481-2655-2_6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-90-481-2655-2_6
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