Characterizing and Assessing the Agricultural Land Use Intensity of the Beijing Mountainous Region

Weiwei Zhang,Hong Li

doi:10.3390/su8111180

Abstract

Recently, land use and land cover change have received increased attention, and an approach is required that can assess agricultural land use intensity on a general basis. This study demonstrated the usefulness of a tool for characterizing and assessing agricultural land use intensity in Beijing mountainous region. An emergy analysis and principal component analysis (PCA) were adopted to obtain agricultural input and output intensity data. Correlation and regression analyses were used to study the relationship among land capability, agricultural input, output intensity, and agricultural system sustainability. Ultimately, the agricultural land use intensity types in the Beijing mountainous region were identified through a cluster analysis. The results produced five indices of agricultural input intensity and five indices of output intensity. Non-renewable energy was the overwhelming input, and grain, meat, eggs, and vegetables were the major outputs of the agricultural system. The results also showed that there was better natural land quality, higher input intensity, greater output intensity, and lower agricultural system sustainability. Eight types of agricultural intensity were classified and assessed, and they may be used to evaluate and monitor sustainable land use and provide baseline measurements of land use intensity for land use analyses and change detection.

Highlights

Land use and land cover change has affected the structure and function of ecosystems in different ways [1] and is central to the sustainable development debate [2]
Five components were extracted from the input factors and five components were extracted from the output factors for 112 towns
The five extracted output components explained 70.37% of the variation in output intensity (Table 3), and they were likewise combined as one output intensity index (Out) (Figure 4)

Summary

Introduction

Land use and land cover change has affected the structure and function of ecosystems in different ways [1] and is central to the sustainable development debate [2]. In the research of land use and land cover change, land cover conversion is defined as the complete replacement of one cover type by another, and land cover modification is referred to as more subtle changes that affect the character of the land cover without changing its overall classification [3]. Most of the related growth in agricultural production will have to rely on increases of output per unit area in agriculture rather than on the limited land expansion. Such increased output on currently used land is commonly described by the broadly accepted, but ambiguously defined, notion of ‘land use intensification’

Objectives

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Results

Conclusion