Virtual land use change in China 2002–2010: Internal transition and trade imbalance

Abstract

As the second largest economy with the largest population in the world, China encounters crucial land availability for food security and socio-economic development. In the context of China's booming economy over the past 3 decades, this study intends to reveal the impacts of domestic demand and international trade on land use distribution of China in the period 2002–2010. This study aims to systematically analyze China's land use-related issues comprehensively, considering multi-type land use, high sectoral resolution, and time series input–output data. Obviously, primary industry is the largest virtual land occupier which covers both the local land use and land use trade, while the importance of secondary and tertiary industries should not be ignored. Mainly due to the land use embodied in the secondary and tertiary industries, China is found as a net exporter of cultivated land use. This figure exceeds by 25 times the cultivated land use loss due to built-up land use occupation, which means that the “red line”, China's cultivated land area constraint set as 120 million hectares (ha), is gradually losing its original meaning. With respect to all types of land use, China exports 20 million ha of land use per year, accounting for 1/50 of the total land area. The huge land use trade imbalance raises an alarm for China. In the recent past, the land occupation type is gradually translating from the original “colonial” land to inter-national land use trade imbalance, and obviously China has not been familiar with such hidden aspects remaining in global trade. As both the direct and indirect land use associated with consumption and trade flows become increasingly significant, suggestions from the virtual perspective are urgently needed to initiate a new horizon.