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Exploring detailed urban-rural development under intersecting population growth and food production scenarios: Trajectories for China’s most populous agricultural province to 2030

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Abstract

Henan, China, is likely the most populous agricultural province worldwide. It is China’s major grain-producing area, with a continuously increasing population (96 million), which is greater than 93% of countries worldwide. However, this province has been experiencing unprecedented urbanization recently due to national policies and measures, such as a plan to build the capital city of Henan into a national center, resulting in severe conflicts in land use that endanger food security regionally and globally. To facilitate decision-making on this problem, we explored the detailed urban-rural development of Henan by modeling these land-use conflicts. Conventional modeling of a region’s urban-rural development is to navigate trade-offs (a) solely between different land-use types (b) by assuming that each type provides a single service (e.g., croplands produce all the food), and (c) under a polynomial regression-based projection of population. In contrast, we considered both land-use type and intensity, resulting in a detailed land system for Henan. By introducing the concept of land system services (e.g., food production), we established a many-to-many relationship between land system classes and services. These allowed us to carry out the most comprehensive modeling of Henan’s urban-rural development under eighteen combined scenarios of population growth and land-use policies on food production. The modeling results of these scenarios provide a solid basis for making decisions regarding Henan’s urban-rural development. We also revealed the influence mechanism of population growth, land-use policies, and their combinations, highlighting the benefits of securing food production by agricultural intensification rather than merely expanding the area of cropland.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. State Key Laboratory of Earth Surface Processes and Resource Ecology, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, 100875, China

    Peichao Gao

  2. Faculty of Geographical Science, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, 100875, China

    Peichao Gao, Changqing Song, Changxiu Cheng & Sijing Ye

  3. Key Laboratory of Environmental Change and Natural Disaster, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, 100875, China

    Yiru Xie

  4. National Tibetan Plateau Data Center, Beijing, 100101, China

    Changxiu Cheng

Authors
  1. Peichao Gao
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  2. Yiru Xie
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  3. Changqing Song
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  4. Changxiu Cheng
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  5. Sijing Ye
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Correspondence to Changqing Song.

Additional information

Foundation: Strategic Priority Research Program of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, No.XDA23100303; National Natural Science Foundation of China, No.42271418, No.42171250, No.42230106; State Key Laboratory of Earth Surface Processes and Resource Ecology, No. 2022-ZD-04

Author: Gao Peichao (1991-), Assistant Professor, specialized in information geography.

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Gao, P., Xie, Y., Song, C. et al. Exploring detailed urban-rural development under intersecting population growth and food production scenarios: Trajectories for China’s most populous agricultural province to 2030. J. Geogr. Sci. 33, 222–244 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11442-023-2080-3

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