The Drivers of Land Use Change at Regional Scale: Assessment and Prospects

Abstract

This paper reviews the research on the drivers of regional land use change.The study of regional land use change drivers is to reveal the real motivation behind the land use change and its interacting mechanism in the aspect of the typical region,so as to simulate and predict the process of land use change.Presently,studies rooting from different natural and socioeconomic backgrounds,and from different scales,have deepened the understanding and cognition of regional land use change driving forces.In order to confirm the fit quantifiable index to embody the driving effect of outer driving factor,the study in the future need to be related with a special region determined by the self-organization of land use system and the complexity of its inner driving forces function.To comprehensively identify the driving factor of land use system under the control of different states and its multiple spatial-temporal scales domino effect,and to establish the regional land use change dynamic models of comprehensive simulation,will reduce the situation of land use system impacted by critical threshold and break.Providing a scientific understanding of the causes and process of regional land use change,the measurements of how,why and where' of current or future changes in regional land use,the impacts of different land use decisions,and the ways that decisions are affected by a changing environment and increasing ecological variability are priority areas for research:(1) identification of divers of regional land use change and scale dependency of their effects;(2) contribution quantification of drivers of regional land use change and their non-uniform distributions in specific region;and(3) incorporation of biophysical feedbacks in land use change models.These issues are very basic.The incorporation of dynamic feedbacks between changing regional land use and changing environmental conditions and vice versa,therefore needs to focus on solving these problems.These findings will be useful to supply fine ground and knowledge for establishing appropriate land use practices,and be important policy implications for the promotion of environmentally and economically sound land use.