Spatiotemporal Dynamics of the Cropland Area and Its Response to Increasing Regional Extreme Weather Events in the Farming-Pastoral Ecotone of Northern China during 1992–2020

Wencun Zhou, Zhengjia Liu () and Sisi Wang
Additional contact information
Wencun Zhou: Key Laboratory of Regional Sustainable Development Modeling, Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, China
Zhengjia Liu: Key Laboratory of Regional Sustainable Development Modeling, Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, China
Sisi Wang: National Remote Sensing Center of China, Beijing 100036, China

Sustainability, 2023, vol. 15, issue 18, 1-28

Abstract: The cropland area is closely related to food production. Previously, more focuses were paid on impacts of extreme events on food production, but less on cropland dynamics. This study used the piecewise linear regression, the correlation analysis, and the ridge regression to explore the spatiotemporal dynamics of cropland and its drivers in three time periods (1992–2020, 1992–2010, and 2010–2020) at the Farming-Pastoral Ecotone of Northern China (FPEN). Specifically, 13 driving factors were considered from the perspectives of extreme events, environmental conditions, socioeconomic development, urban sprawl, and ecological construction. Results showed that the cropland area increased significantly at a rate of 333.5 km 2 /a during 1992–2020 and was spatially clustered in the eastern FPEN. The impact extent and size of each driving factor on the cropland trend presented large spatiotemporal differences, but ecological construction had, overall, the greatest impact on cropland area changes, followed by urban sprawl. In comparison, extreme low temperature had the smallest. Since the 2010s, areas with urban sprawl being the dominant factor in cropland dynamics have increased by 41.9%, but it is still less than the ecological construction impact. Furthermore, this study found that extreme event effects on the cropland area trend evidently increased. Particularly, extreme high temperature displayed the highest increase (~99.4%). Cropland area changes dominated by extreme temperature events in 2010–2020 increased by nearly six times compared to those in 1992–2010. These results suggest that policy and planning makers should caution increasing impacts of regional extreme weather events on cropland area changes.

Keywords: cropland area trend; contribution rate; ridge regression model; extreme events; ecological construction; urban sprawl; the Farming-Pastoral Ecotone of Northern China (FPEN) (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/15/18/13338/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/15/18/13338/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:15:y:2023:i:18:p:13338-:d:1233780

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().