IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/lauspo/v140y2024ics0264837724000498.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Dynamics of land cover changes and driving forces in China’s drylands since the 1970 s

Author

Listed:
  • Wu, Bingfang
  • Fu, Zhijun
  • Fu, Bojie
  • Yan, Changzhen
  • Zeng, Hongwei
  • Zhao, Wenwu

Abstract

The land cover in China’s drylands has undergone dramatic changes due to rapid economic development and ecological restoration; however, the long-term and detailed land cover and land use change (LCLUC) focus on this unique region remains inadequate. Based on a temporally continuous and spatially high-resolution ChinaCover dataset from 1975, as well as climatic and socioeconomic data, this study analyzed the spatiotemporal pattern of LCLUC in China’s drylands over 45 years, revealed the land conversions in the secondary category and explored its major driving factors in different periods. The results show that the rate of LCLUC is accelerating, and the trajectory of LCLUC is slowly changing although stable land is dominant. There are complex conversions among land covers, with each type of change affecting an average of 12 other types, and the LCLUC in drylands was mainly determined by the mutual conversions among shrub, desert shrub, steppe, sparse grassland, built-up, upland, and barren land. Anthropogenic land has grown rapidly, especially in the ethnic autonomous regions of Xinjiang, Ningxia, and Inner Mongolia, while ecological restoration programs have led to significant growth of natural land in the remaining regions. The widespread rapid expansion of artificial surfaces, western growth of agricultural land and eastern recovery of woodland have been supported by the continued decline of grassland and unused land. LCLUC in China’s drylands was more influenced by population in the 1980 s, while economic development had a stronger influence in the 1990 s. In the 2000 s and 2010 s, however, population and cultivation had a stronger influence. All drivers are backed by macro policies. It was observed that resolution has a significant impact on the LCLUC when the resolution increases from 30 m to 10 m. These findings provide decision support for sustainable policy making and further promote the exploration of complex human-land relationships in drylands.

Suggested Citation

  • Wu, Bingfang & Fu, Zhijun & Fu, Bojie & Yan, Changzhen & Zeng, Hongwei & Zhao, Wenwu, 2024. "Dynamics of land cover changes and driving forces in China’s drylands since the 1970 s," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 140(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:lauspo:v:140:y:2024:i:c:s0264837724000498
    DOI: 10.1016/j.landusepol.2024.107097
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0264837724000498
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.landusepol.2024.107097?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Yi Xi & Shushi Peng & Gang Liu & Agnès Ducharne & Philippe Ciais & Catherine Prigent & Xinyu Li & Xutao Tang, 2022. "Trade-off between tree planting and wetland conservation in China," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 13(1), pages 1-11, December.
    2. Clark II, Woodrow W. & Isherwood, William, 2010. "Energy strategies study report for Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region," Utilities Policy, Elsevier, vol. 18(1), pages 11-12, March.
    3. David Gampe & Jakob Zscheischler & Markus Reichstein & Michael O’Sullivan & William K. Smith & Stephen Sitch & Wolfgang Buermann, 2021. "Increasing impact of warm droughts on northern ecosystem productivity over recent decades," Nature Climate Change, Nature, vol. 11(9), pages 772-779, September.
    4. Xiao-Peng Song & Matthew C. Hansen & Stephen V. Stehman & Peter V. Potapov & Alexandra Tyukavina & Eric F. Vermote & John R. Townshend, 2018. "Global land change from 1982 to 2016," Nature, Nature, vol. 560(7720), pages 639-643, August.
    5. Xiaoming Feng & Bojie Fu & Shilong Piao & Shuai Wang & Philippe Ciais & Zhenzhong Zeng & Yihe Lü & Yuan Zeng & Yue Li & Xiaohui Jiang & Bingfang Wu, 2016. "Revegetation in China’s Loess Plateau is approaching sustainable water resource limits," Nature Climate Change, Nature, vol. 6(11), pages 1019-1022, November.
    6. Brett A. Bryan & Lei Gao & Yanqiong Ye & Xiufeng Sun & Jeffery D. Connor & Neville D. Crossman & Mark Stafford-Smith & Jianguo Wu & Chunyang He & Deyong Yu & Zhifeng Liu & Ang Li & Qingxu Huang & Hai , 2018. "China’s response to a national land-system sustainability emergency," Nature, Nature, vol. 559(7713), pages 193-204, July.
    7. Guangzhao Chen & Xia Li & Xiaoping Liu & Yimin Chen & Xun Liang & Jiye Leng & Xiaocong Xu & Weilin Liao & Yue’an Qiu & Qianlian Wu & Kangning Huang, 2020. "Global projections of future urban land expansion under shared socioeconomic pathways," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 11(1), pages 1-12, December.
    8. Kuang, Wenhui, 2020. "National urban land-use/cover change since the beginning of the 21st century and its policy implications in China," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 97(C).
    9. Li, Zhouyuan & Wu, Wenzhao & Liu, Xuehua & Fath, Brian D. & Sun, Hailian & Liu, Xinchao & Xiao, Xinru & Cao, Jun, 2017. "Land use/cover change and regional climate change in an arid grassland ecosystem of Inner Mongolia, China," Ecological Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 353(C), pages 86-94.
    10. Lindsey L. Sloat & James S. Gerber & Leah H. Samberg & William K. Smith & Mario Herrero & Laerte G. Ferreira & Cécile M. Godde & Paul C. West, 2018. "Increasing importance of precipitation variability on global livestock grazing lands," Nature Climate Change, Nature, vol. 8(3), pages 214-218, March.
    11. Xiao-Peng Song & Matthew C. Hansen & Stephen V. Stehman & Peter V. Potapov & Alexandra Tyukavina & Eric F. Vermote & John R. Townshend, 2018. "Author Correction: Global land change from 1982 to 2016," Nature, Nature, vol. 563(7732), pages 26-26, November.
    12. Tim Newbold & Lawrence N. Hudson & Samantha L. L. Hill & Sara Contu & Igor Lysenko & Rebecca A. Senior & Luca Börger & Dominic J. Bennett & Argyrios Choimes & Ben Collen & Julie Day & Adriana De Palma, 2015. "Global effects of land use on local terrestrial biodiversity," Nature, Nature, vol. 520(7545), pages 45-50, April.
    13. Chi Chen & Taejin Park & Xuhui Wang & Shilong Piao & Baodong Xu & Rajiv K. Chaturvedi & Richard Fuchs & Victor Brovkin & Philippe Ciais & Rasmus Fensholt & Hans Tømmervik & Govindasamy Bala & Zaichun , 2019. "China and India lead in greening of the world through land-use management," Nature Sustainability, Nature, vol. 2(2), pages 122-129, February.
    14. Gao, Runyi & Chuai, Xiaowei & Ge, Jingfeng & Wen, Jiqun & Zhao, Rongqin & Zuo, Tianhui, 2022. "An integrated tele-coupling analysis for requisition–compensation balance and its influence on carbon storage in China," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 116(C).
    15. Guoyi Zhou & Xiaohua Wei & Xiuzhi Chen & Ping Zhou & Xiaodong Liu & Yin Xiao & Ge Sun & David F. Scott & Shuyidan Zhou & Liusheng Han & Yongxian Su, 2015. "Global pattern for the effect of climate and land cover on water yield," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 6(1), pages 1-9, May.
    16. Wang, Jing & Lin, Yifan & Glendinning, Anthony & Xu, Yueqing, 2018. "Land-use changes and land policies evolution in China’s urbanization processes," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 75(C), pages 375-387.
    17. Xu, Jintao & Yin, Runsheng & Li, Zhou & Liu, Can, 2006. "China's ecological rehabilitation: Unprecedented efforts, dramatic impacts, and requisite policies," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 57(4), pages 595-607, June.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Zhou, Yang & Zhong, Zhen & Cheng, Guoqiang, 2023. "Cultivated land loss and construction land expansion in China: Evidence from national land surveys in 1996, 2009 and 2019," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 125(C).
    2. Kong, Xuesong & Fu, Mengxue & Zhao, Xiang & Wang, Jing & Jiang, Ping, 2022. "Ecological effects of land-use change on two sides of the Hu Huanyong Line in China," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 113(C).
    3. Huang, Xinxin & Wang, Haijun & Xiao, Fentao, 2022. "Simulating urban growth affected by national and regional land use policies: Case study from Wuhan, China," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 112(C).
    4. Xingbo Yin, 2022. "The influence of urbanization on vegetation carbon pools under a tele-coupling framework in China," Environment, Development and Sustainability: A Multidisciplinary Approach to the Theory and Practice of Sustainable Development, Springer, vol. 24(3), pages 4046-4063, March.
    5. Zhenjie Liao & Lijuan Zhang, 2023. "Spatio-temporal evolution and future simulation of urban agglomeration expansion in the Guangdong–Hongkong–Macau Greater Bay Area," Palgrave Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 10(1), pages 1-12, December.
    6. Yaqian He & Jieun Oh & Eungul Lee & Yaeone Kim, 2022. "Land Cover and Land Use Mapping of the East Asian Summer Monsoon Region from 1982 to 2015," Land, MDPI, vol. 11(3), pages 1-21, March.
    7. Liu, Jingming & Chen, Haibin & Hou, Xianhui & Zhang, Daojun & Zhang, Hui, 2021. "Time to adopt a context-specific and market-based compensation scheme for a new round of the Grain for Green Program," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 108(C).
    8. Di, Nan & Yang, Shangjin & Liu, Yang & Fan, Yunxiang & Duan, Jie & Nadezhdina, Nadezhda & Li, Ximeng & Xi, Benye, 2022. "Soil-moisture-dependent nocturnal water use strategy and its responses to meteorological factors in a seasonal-arid poplar plantation," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 274(C).
    9. Zhenjie Liao & Lijuan Zhang, 2024. "Analyzing and predicting the urbanization and ecological resilience coupling and coordination of Guangdong Province," Palgrave Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 11(1), pages 1-14, December.
    10. Ruiqiu Pang & Ning Hu & Jingrui Zhou & Dongqi Sun & Hongying Ye, 2022. "Study on Eco-Environmental Effects of Land-Use Transitions and Their Influencing Factors in the Central and Southern Liaoning Urban Agglomeration: A Production–Living–Ecological Perspective," Land, MDPI, vol. 11(6), pages 1-22, June.
    11. Weijia Chen & Yongquan Lu & Guilin Liu, 2022. "Balancing cropland gain and desert vegetation loss: The key to rural revitalization in Xinjiang, China," Growth and Change, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 53(3), pages 1122-1145, September.
    12. Baoni Li & Lihua Xiong & Quan Zhang & Shilei Chen & Han Yang & Shuhui Guo, 2022. "Effects of land use/cover change on atmospheric humidity in three urban agglomerations in the Yangtze River Economic Belt, China," Natural Hazards: Journal of the International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards, Springer;International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards, vol. 113(1), pages 577-613, August.
    13. Wei Fan & Xiankun Yang & Shirong Cai & Haidong Ou & Tao Zhou & Dakang Wang, 2024. "Land-Use/Cover Change and Driving Forces in the Pan-Pearl River Basin during the Period 1985–2020," Land, MDPI, vol. 13(6), pages 1-26, June.
    14. Michel Opelele Omeno & Ying Yu & Wenyi Fan & Tolerant Lubalega & Chen Chen & Claude Kachaka Sudi Kaiko, 2021. "Analysis of the Impact of Land-Use/Land-Cover Change on Land-Surface Temperature in the Villages within the Luki Biosphere Reserve," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(20), pages 1-23, October.
    15. Min Wang & Kongtao Qin & Yanhong Jia & Xiaohan Yuan & Shuqi Yang, 2022. "Land Use Transition and Eco-Environmental Effects in Karst Mountain Area Based on Production-Living-Ecological Space: A Case Study of Longlin Multinational Autonomous County, Southwest China," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(13), pages 1-23, June.
    16. Xiaotong Wang & Jiazheng Han & Jian Lin, 2022. "Response of Land Use and Net Primary Productivity to Coal Mining: A Case Study of Huainan City and Its Mining Areas," Land, MDPI, vol. 11(7), pages 1-16, June.
    17. Chen Ma & Runze Nie & Guoming Du, 2023. "Responses of Soil Collembolans to Land Degradation in a Black Soil Region in China," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 20(6), pages 1-13, March.
    18. Liu, Yansui & Zhou, Yang, 2021. "Reflections on China's food security and land use policy under rapid urbanization," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 109(C).
    19. Zhihua Liu & John S. Kimball & Ashley P. Ballantyne & Nicholas C. Parazoo & Wen J. Wang & Ana Bastos & Nima Madani & Susan M. Natali & Jennifer D. Watts & Brendan M. Rogers & Philippe Ciais & Kailiang, 2022. "Respiratory loss during late-growing season determines the net carbon dioxide sink in northern permafrost regions," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 13(1), pages 1-13, December.
    20. Yuji Hara & Chizuko Hirai & Yuki Sampei, 2022. "Mapping Uncounted Anthropogenic Fill Flows: Environmental Impact and Mitigation," Land, MDPI, vol. 11(11), pages 1-19, November.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:lauspo:v:140:y:2024:i:c:s0264837724000498. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Joice Jiang (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.journals.elsevier.com/land-use-policy .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.