Review of Urbanization-Associated Farmland Research in China: A Sustainability Perspective

Qiqi Yang, Lijie Pu () and Sihua Huang
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Qiqi Yang: School of Geography and Ocean Science, Nanjing University, Nanjing 210023, China
Lijie Pu: School of Geography and Ocean Science, Nanjing University, Nanjing 210023, China
Sihua Huang: Nanjing Institute of Technology, School of Environmental Engineering, Nanjing 211167, China

Land, 2024, vol. 13, issue 4, 1-16

Abstract: Farmland loss in drastically urbanizing landscapes has long been a research concern for resource management, landscape planning, and spatial governance, especially in the context of China. In recent years, the issue of urbanization-associated farmland loss (UAFL) seems to be increasingly recognized as relevant to sustainability. To date, however, existing studies have not yet comprehensively addressed the research gap between UAFL and sustainability. Here, we aim to help fill this knowledge gap by considering UAFL research as an example of the broader land/landscape-related literature, in a hope of informing future studies to better advance sustainability through land-related approaches. Specifically, we combined bibliometric analyses with code-based content analysis to reveal the knowledge base, thematic evolution, and historiographic paths of the literature on UAFL across China and the empirical case studies’ relevance to sustainability. Our main findings include: (1) the examined literature barely draws insights from sustainability science and sustainability only started to arise as a notable topic at around 2016; (2) over half of the empirical studies show awareness in advancing sustainability and interest in understanding the social-environmental drivers and processes underlying landscape dynamics, yet few demonstrate methodological transdisciplinarity; (3) those sustainability-relevant studies either frame UAFL as depletion of the farmland resource that may threat China’s food security and consequently hinder sustainable urbanization or frame UAFL as part of widespread landscape dynamics that affect the environmental outcome(s) or social–environmental tradeoffs of landscape multi-functions; and (4) existing empirical studies are disproportionately focused on 1991–2006, national, regional, and city scales, and some of China’s most developed areas. Our findings provide an overview of this specific research avenue on UAFL and, more importantly, point to the imperative for land/landscape scholars to break out of their disciplinary silos, especially in the natural sciences, to generate more actionable sustainability insights.

Keywords: bibliographic review; cropland loss; urban sustainability; land system science; landscape sustainability science; social–environmental system (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q15 Q2 Q24 Q28 Q5 R14 R52 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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