Relationship between land use change and agricultural production in Chinese Yellow River Basin

Abstract

<p>The Yellow River basin, from west to east through different gradient terrains and climates, has huge spatial differences of land use and problematic eco‐environment. The understanding of relationship between land use change and agricultural production is crucial for coordinating the conflict between land development and environment protection in the Yellow River basin. In this study, the relationship between changes in arable land and urban land and changes in vegetation cover and agricultural production potential were quantitatively analyzed. Whether reclaimed land in the Yellow River basin can be converted to arable land and whether the occupation of urban land will cause ecosystem degradation were also discussed. The results indicated that: (1) Land use change in the Yellow River basin was greatly influenced by precipitation, which also affected the agricultural production potential and the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) in the Yellow River basin. The implementation of the Grain for Green program (GGP) had an effective restoration for vegetation cover and the resistance of soil erosion. Although the net area of arable land decreased by 71.6 ten thousand ha, the net production potential of arable land still increased by 1.7 ten thousand tons due to the inferior quality of the arable land for ecological restoration. (2) The concentrated distributed grassland and forest shrunk and the supply of ecosystem services and NDVI reduced, leading to ecological degraded in urban agglomeration regions where human activity was concentrated and construction land was increasing rapidly during the period of 2000–2015. The arable land was reduced by 43.3 ten thousand ha due to urban expansion, accounting for 59% of the total area of urban expansion, and consequently the agricultural production potential in the lower reaches was decreased. (3) Although it has not contributed significantly to agricultural production, the reclaimed land can be converted to arable land to a certain extent, due to its reasonable use for improving the ecological status of the Yellow River basin. 34.1 ten thousand ha of unused land and grassland were reclaimed for arable land under the Requisition‐Compensation Equilibrium of Farmland, which accounts for 1.27% of the total arable land. The increase of potential productivity brought by the reclamation of land for agricultural use only accounts for 0.56% of the total arable land potential productivity. However, compared with the whole Yellow River basin and the GGP region, the region with arable land reclaimed by low-coverage grassland and unused land leads to the highest increasing rate of the supply of ecosystem services and NDVI. The results could provide theoretical support and decision-making basis for further eco‐environment reconstruction, and promoting the reasonable land use and high-quality development in the Yellow River basin.</p>