Does Agroforestry Correlate with the Sustainability of Agricultural Landscapes? Evidence from China’s Nationally Important Agricultural Heritage Systems

Menghan Zhang and Jingyi Liu
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Menghan Zhang: School of Landscape Architecture, Beijing Forestry University, Beijing 100083, China
Jingyi Liu: College of Forestry and Landscape Architecture, South China Agricultural University, Guangzhou 510642, China

Sustainability, 2022, vol. 14, issue 12, 1-19

Abstract: Compared with industrial monoculture, agroforestry has been perceived as a more sustainable approach to landscape management that provides various landscape-specific benefits. However, little is known about agroforestry’s influence on the comprehensive sustainability of agricultural landscapes. This study focused on the importance of agroforestry and its influence on landscape sustainability, using 118 China National Important Agricultural Heritage Systems (China-NIAHS) as cases. In each China-NIAHS, we evaluated the importance of agroforestry and the landscape’s comprehensive sustainability and explored their correlation. The findings indicate that agroforestry is important in most China-NIAHS. Agroforestry’s importance is strongly correlated with most sustainability indicators, including biodiversity, income diversity, resource utilization, hydrogeological preservation, and water regulation. Based on the findings, we discuss the role of agroforestry in promoting sustainability and provide suggestions for sustainable management and policymaking for agricultural landscapes on a national scale.

Keywords: agricultural landscape; agricultural heritage; agroforestry; landscape sustainability (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

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