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

Bingfang Wu, Zhijun Fu, Bojie Fu, Changzhen Yan, Hongwei Zeng and Wenwu Zhao

Land Use Policy, 2024, vol. 140, issue C

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.

Keywords: Spatial-temporal pattern; Secondary classes; Land cover conversion; 45-year span (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0264837724000498
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

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:eee:lauspo:v:140:y:2024:i:c:s0264837724000498

DOI: 10.1016/j.landusepol.2024.107097

Access Statistics for this article

Land Use Policy is currently edited by Jaap Zevenbergen

More articles in Land Use Policy from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Joice Jiang ().