Analysis of driving forces on the change of historical farmland use in Shandong province during the Qing Dynasty (1644–1911)

Abstract

How land-cover has been changed by human use over the last 300 years is one of the five overarching questions guiding the Land-use/Cover Change (LUCC) Science/Research Plan. China has variety of historical documents providing unique data superiority. So the characteristics of farmaland area in Shandong Province during the Qing Dynasty (1644–1911) are summarized firstly: 1) the rising trend of farmland area was striking; 2) farmland area had remarkable fluctuation; 3) farmland area per capita decreased dramatically; 4) wasteland reclamation index increased rapidly. Then, the driving forces of farmland area change are analyzed. It is concluded that natural and human factors are jointly influential. Among the driving forces, human dimensions are the main factors of farmland area change, which direct the general tendency of the changes mentioned above. And the natural factors influence the stability of farmland area as well. Variation of the natural factors would act as the major contributory factor to farmland area change during years or periods of abrupt climatic changes, or during the intensive occurring periods of natural hazards. Besides, the passive aspects of human factors, such as war chaos also influenced the fluctuation of the farmland area. This research indicates that it is feasible to study the land-use/cover change by Chinese historical literatures, which has huge potential to provide a comprehensive picture of the growing dominance of human land-use and land-cover patterns that can be used in many global change research projects.