Requisition-compensation Balance Research Articles

The Gains and Losses of Cultivated Land Requisition–Compensation Balance: Analysis of the Spatiotemporal Trade-Offs and Synergies in Ecosystem Services Using Hubei Province as a Case Study

The cultivated land requisition–compensation balance (CLRCB) policy is an important policy implemented by China to address the reduction in cultivated land and ensure food security. Although this policy has alleviated the loss of cultivated land quantity, it has had complex and diverse impacts on ecosystem services. Taking Hubei Province as the study area, this research explores the impact of the implementation of the CLRCB on ecosystem services and simulates the changes in ecosystem services in the study area in 2030 and the impact of CLRCB on the interactions among various services. The results show the following: (1) from 2000 to 2020, Hubei Province achieved a balance in the quantity of cultivated land through excessive compensation but failed to reach the goals of balancing cultivated land yield and productivity. (2) During the requisition–compensation process, habitat quality decreased by 501,862, and carbon storage lost 1.3 × 107 t, indicating negative ecological impacts; soil conservation services increased by 184.2 × 106 t, and water production increased by 21.29.3 × 108 m3. Within the cultivated land requisition–compensation area, habitat quality and carbon storage, as well as soil conservation and water production, exhibited synergistic relationships, while the remaining pairs of ecosystem services showed trade-off relationships. (3) The simulation of ecosystem services in 2030 indicates that soil conservation and water production are highest under the natural development scenario, while habitat quality and carbon storage are highest under the ecological protection scenario, both of which are superior to the urban development scenario. Under the natural development scenario, the trade-off and synergistic relationships among various ecosystem services in the cultivated land requisition–compensation area remain unchanged, while these relationships change significantly under the other two scenarios. This study emphasizes that future CLRCB should not only focus on maintaining the quantity of cultivated land but also consider the comprehensive benefits of ecosystem services, in order to achieve sustainable land-use management and ecological conservation.

Estimating terrestrial ecosystem carbon storage change in the YREB caused by land-use change under SSP-RCPs scenarios

Terrestrial ecosystems, as an essential carbon sink of atmospheric CO2, play an important role in balancing the global carbon cycle. Land-use and land-cover changes (LUCCs) are the major factors in terrestrial ecosystem carbon storage (TECS) change. However, they are not yet sure how future LUCCs would affect the TECS in the Yangtze River Economic Belt (YREB) to meet China's carbon-neutral goal. We simulated eight land-use change scenarios and used these to estimate the YREB's TECS and its 2020–2060 variation by coupling the spatially explicit projections of LUCCs under the latest IPCC, combining shared socioeconomic pathways (SSPs) and representative concentration pathways (RCPs) with datasets on terrestrial ecosystem carbon density dataset. Results show that: 1) the total TECS of the YREB in 2020 is ∼28.07 Gt. Spatially, TECS in the YREB focused on Sichuan and Yunnan (∼13.35 Gt), which plays a crucial role in balancing the regional carbon cycle; its losses are in Jiangsu, Zhejiang, and Hunan provinces; Yunnan is the potential region with future carbon sink enhancement in the YREB. 2) Compared to the TECS change under eight land-use scenarios, the low-carbon and sustainable development pathways are the priority chosen by humans. 3) The replacement of vast forest land with cropland and urban expansion are the key factor of TECS change in the YREB. 4) Land management policies (i.e., Cultivated land requisition-compensation balance) should balance the conflicts between food self-sufficiency and the carbon sink rather than only the dynamic balance in quantity. Our study aims to provide data support for the government in planning future development pathways and refining carbon emission reduction strategies to assist in carbon trading and compensation and achieve the YREB's dual-carbon goal.

Spatiotemporal Distribution and Driving Mechanisms of Cropland Long-Term Stability in China from 1990 to 2018

Long-term stability is crucial in cropland for maintaining stable agricultural production and ensuring national food security. However, relatively few studies have been conducted on the long-term stability of cropland at the national level. This study assessed the long-term stability of cropland in China from 1990 to 2018 using a fine-resolution land use dataset. The experimental results indicated that the average area of unstable cropland in China from 1990 to 2018 amounted to 2.08 × 106 km2, 47.31% of the total. The Qinghai–Tibet Plateau exhibited the highest average proportion of unstable cropland at 65.9%, followed by the northern arid and semiarid region, Southern China, and the Yunnan–Guizhou Plateau. The quantity of unstable cropland in China initially declined before increasing, reaching a final growth rate of 5.09%. Furthermore, this study explored the relevant driving factors of cropland’s long-term stability from both natural factors and human activities based on artificial neural networks. The relative importance of distance to vegetation reached a value of 0.30, indicating that it had the most significant influence on the long-term stability of cropland, followed by relief amplitude and soil type. This phenomenon may be attributed to the inadequate execution of the Grain for Green Policy and the requisition–compensation balance of cropland policy, along with the depletion of young and middle-aged laborers due to urban migration from rural areas. Local governments should focus on addressing the unsustainable exploitation of sloped land in rural mountainous or hilly regions while preventing urban developers from appropriating fertile cropland to compensate for less fertile areas.

No increase of soil wind erosion with the establishment of center pivot irrigation system in Mu-Us sandy land

Center Pivot Irrigation system (CPIs) is widely used in newly exploited arable land in sandy lands. These sandy lands are currently stable because of climate change and ecological restoration efforts since the beginning of the 21st century in northern China. The exploitation of these fixed sandy lands to arable land with CPIs may affect the soil wind erosion, yet it remains unknown. The temporal changes of CPIs and its effect on wind erosion module were analyzed and modeled from 2000 to 2020 in Mu-Us sandy land using satellite images and Revised Wind Erosion Equation (RWEQ). The establishment of CPIs started from 2010, boomed in 2015 and peaked in 2020. They were mainly transformed from woodland, grassland, and barren land near rivers in east and southeast, and from cropland in inter-dunes in west and southwest of Mu-Us sandy land. The temporal and spatial pattern of CPIs well aligns with the land consolidation and requisition-compensation balance policies. In most of the Mu-Us sandy land, the annual erosion module is <25 t ha−1 a−1. Despite great variation, the annual, Winter and Spring erosion module of the Mu-Us sandy land or in Otog Qian and Yuyang, the CPIs concentrated counties, all decreased during 2000–2019. Although, wind erosion module in CPIs was lower than the surrounding area, it increased in 2019 given the same climate conditions as in 2010. Our results suggest 1) the establishment of CPIs in Mu-Us sandy land greatly depends on the local policy and natural endowment, and 2) although the set-up of CPIs showed no impact on the wind erosion with CPIs accounting for <1 % of Mu-Us sandy land, post-harvest of CPIs should be carefully concerned to prevent soil wind erosion.

Construction land reduction projects as a pathway to sustainability: an empirical analysis of risks factors in China.

Construction land reduction (CLR) is an effective instrument to improve intensive land use, restrict the expansion of construction land, safeguard the requisition-compensation balance of construction land in China, and realize sustainable development. But multiple risks arise from the process of construction land reduction. In that case, identifying and analyzing the key risks of CLR is the prerequisite for formulating practical policy guidelines. This study is conducted to identify the risk factors of CLR and analyze these risks based on expert opinion. Initially, the original risk factors are sourced from existing literature. In order to tailor them to China's specific context, the Delphi method is employed to systematically refine risk definitions, consolidate similar risk elements, and identify any previously unrecognized risks in the literature. Following an in-depth review of the literature, we create a contextual relationship-based model employing an integrated technique of interpretive structural modeling (ISM) and Cross-Impact Matrix Multiplication Applied to Classification (MICMAC) analysis. Based on the ISM and MICMAC analysis, five key risks were identified, and the prevention strategies and policy recommendations for CLR project risks are put forward.

Cropland compensation in mountainous areas in China aggravates non-grain production: evidence from Fujian Province

The large-scale non-grain production (NGP) on cropland poses a potential threat to national food security, which has attracted the attention of the Chinese government. As a hotspot of NGP, mountainous cropland has undergone dramatic changes in its distribution pattern, influenced by China's cropland requisition-compensation balance system. Consequently, the NGP on compensated cropland (CCL) has become an unstable factor in grain production in mountainous areas. This paper analyzes the distribution pattern of CCL in Fujian Province, a typical mountainous area in China, identifies and compares the NGP characteristics between original cropland (OCL) and CCL, and explores its driving mechanism based on the physico-geographical environment, the socio-locational environment, and the resource endowment attributes, using the boosted regression trees (BRT) model. Results show that from 2009 to 2019, CCL tended to shift towards higher elevation and steeper terrain in the vertical zone and towards inland agricultural districts and counties in the western and northern horizontal zones. The NGP rate of CCL reached 16%, about twice that of OCL, and the proportion of instable cropland was also higher. Travel distance to adjacent cropland and slope were the main driving factors for NGP of CCL, followed by patch area, agricultural population density, and suitability of machine tillage. These factors exhibited differentiated marginal effects in their different threshold intervals and did not follow a simple one-way action mechanism. Furthermore, the analysis of pairwise interaction effects between variables identified the four most powerful combinations, which were slope-elevation, travel distance to adjacent cropland-elevation, slope-travel distance to adjacent residential area, and travel distance to adjacent cropland–aspect; within their specific value ranges, NGP is highly likely. Finally, we optimized the current evaluation system for reserved cropland resources based on these value ranges and selected Jianyang County, Dehua County, Zhao’an County, across the Fujian Province, as the area to adjust the reclamation strategy of future reserved cropland resources.

Evaluation of the efficiency and drivers of complemented cropland in Southwest China over the past 30 years from the perspective of cropland abandonment

Complemented croplands are a crucial component of cropland resources and play a significant role in ensuring national food security. In recent decades, to counter the loss of prime farmland caused by urban construction, the Chinese government introduced a requisition–compensation balance policy, leading to the substantial expansion of new croplands. Therefore, there is an urgent need to determine whether these complemented croplands can be effectively used. Taking Southwest China as a case study, we used high-precision long-term land-use data from 1990 to 2020 to reveal the dynamics of complemented cropland utilization, evaluate the efficiency of complemented cropland utilization from the perspective of abandoned farmland, and identify the factors driving complemented cropland use efficiency based on more than 13 million land parcels. The results showed that: (1) From 1990 to 2020, complemented cropland amounted to approximately 1170.07 × 104 hm2, accounting for 32.67% of the total arable land area in 1990. The potential grain production capacity of these complemented croplands was significantly lower than that of base croplands. (2) The abandonment of complemented croplands was more serious than that of base croplands, and 47.03% of the complemented croplands experienced abandonment at least once during the study period, and the average efficiency of the complemented croplands was 75.61%. (3) The labor population ratio, elevation, and land parcel size played pivotal roles in influencing the complemented cropland utilization efficiency; however, there was substantial variation among the different provinces. Labor replacement, overcoming farming difficulties brought by mountainous terrain, and improving farmers' income are the keys to alleviating cropland abandonment in mountainous areas and improving cropland utilization efficiency. This study provides novel insights into the efficiency assessment and exploration of the mechanisms driving complemented croplands and can provide references for cropland management.

A novel framework to integrate cropland quantity and quality from pixel to county level: Implications for requisition–compensation balance of farmland policy in China

AbstractCropland quantity and quality are two important indicators for determining agricultural production. However, few studies integrate them at the pixel level for a comprehensive assessment of food production potential. Consequently, it is hard to evaluate the implementation effectiveness of China's Requisition–Compensation Balance of Farmland (RCBF) policy, which requires balances in cropland quality and quantity for land exploitation. Here, we presented a novel framework to assess the impacts of cropland change on food production potential by combining cropland quantity and quality from pixel to county level. The cropland quantity was defined as cropland gain or loss calculated by 30‐m land cover datasets, while cropland quality was characterized by the integration of climate, terrain, and soil factors using a fuzzy comprehensive evaluation method. Then, nine distinct patterns, reflecting the interdependence between changed cropland area and production potential, were identified to represent the implementation effectiveness of RCBF policy for each county. Results showed cropland area decreased by 1.85% during 2005–2015 in Hubei Province, which mainly occurred in regions with moisture climate and very flat terrain. A majority of croplands with the best soil fertility remained relatively stable during this period. The pattern “more occupation than compensation” was the dominant way of implementing RCBF in Hubei. Four counties positively responded to RCBF, for which the compensatory croplands had superior quality than occupied croplands. This study presented an efficient way to evaluate the impacts of cropland change on agricultural production potential, which provides valuable insights for researchers and decision‐makers to strengthen practices and improve policies for land reclamation and consolidation.

Mechanisms of Rural Sustainable Development Driven by Land Use Restructuring: A Perspective of “Scale-Space” Interactions

Regional development issues can be reflected in land use and addressed through land use restructuring. It is commonly recognized that strengthening the role of small towns in the coordinated and sustainable development of counties, towns, and villages is effective in solving land use problems. However, relevant studies do not focus on the county space and lack scale extensions to reflect the role and status of small towns. In this paper, an analytical framework is developed and some research hypotheses are proposed from the perspective of “Scale-Space” interaction. Then, a county in central China is used as a case study to reveal the mechanism of rural land use restructuring by comparing the changes in land use structure in different locations in recent years. The study finds that under the constraint of the basic principle of “Requisition-Compensation Balance”, the county has reorganized the spatial and landscape pattern of the countryside through extensive “demolition of the old” and “construction of the new”. Among them, towns that are distant from the county center, while improving their cohesion, give full play to their role as regional sub-centers, and are expected to become an important force driving urbanization in the future.

Estimate provincial-level effectiveness of the arable land requisition-compensation balance policy in mainland China in the last 20 years

The “requisition-compensation balance policy” is a basic arable land protection policy promulgated by the Chinese government to maintain the dynamic balance of the total arable land. Since the implementation of the “requisition-compensation balance policy”, its important role in the conservation of arable land has been widely noted. Multiple studies indicate the effectiveness of the policy by estimating the quantity and quality change of arable land. In addition, the defects and negative externalities of the policy are disputed. The overall goal of this study is to estimate the provincial-level effectiveness of the “requisition-compensation balance policy” in mainland China in two periods (i.e., 2000—2010; 2010—2020) from four perspectives: arable land quantity dynamic balance; arable land productivity balance; farming distance; and sustainability of arable land use. The results showed that, first, the arable land quantity balance was achieved during 2000–2020 from a national perspective. There are still 19–23% of provinces have failed to reach the quantity balance. Second, the decrease in China’s total arable land productivity was exacerbated from 9612.1 thousand tons. to 31254.6 thousand ton. The average potential yield balance index was less than 1 for nearly all provinces during 2000–2010 and became even worse in the next decade because of occupying superior arable land while compensating for inferior arable land. The conservation of arable land productivity has become more important than the conservation of quantity. Third, due to the lack of constraints on the farming distance changes in the “requisition-compensation balance policy”, most provinces convert arable land around urban and rural areas to built-up land while replenishing land far from residential areas without providing adequate agricultural infrastructure, which leads to an increase in the cost of farming and consequently to an increase in the marginalization of arable land. During 2010–2020, the average farming distance of compensated arable land at the provincial level reached 2–7 times that of occupied arable land. However, the average farming distance of the whole arable land at the provincial level decreased by 3.82–63.88% during the same period. This contradiction is mainly due to increasing marginalization and opportunity costs resulting in arable land with high farming distance (including arable land that was compensated in the past) to be used with low intensity or even abandoned and thus identified as other land use types by remote sensing classification models. This factor outweighed that of “occupy nearby arable land while compensating farther one”, resulting in a reduction in the provincial average farming distance. Fourth, the percentage of sustainable compensated arable land in most provinces was lower than 70%. This indicated that the utilization and protection of arable land in these provinces was insufficiently implemented and monitored. Challenges along optimization of the “requisition-compensation balance policy” were discussed from two respects: data, theory and methodology and policy design and implementation. The authors argue that a more comprehensive “requisition-compensation balance policy” should be designed considering not only the quantity and productivity of arable land but also the farming distance, sustainability and ecological protection. A differentiated regulation mechanism of arable land requisition compensation in trans-provincial areas should be formulated. This study can provide guidance for optimizing the implementation of regional arable land protection and can also provide a reference for other countries to protect arable land.

Mechanism, risk, and solution of cultivated land reversion to mountains and abandonment in China

The cultivated land requisition-compensation balance (CLRB) system in China has been designed to defend cultivated land resources and grain production functions. Nevertheless, since the addition of a new policy, namely the linkage of increase and decrease (LID) of urban and rural construction land in 2008, a mass of cultivated land has been returning to mountains, sometimes resulting in abandonment. The county of Wannian was investigated from the microcosmic perspective, and we attempted to analyze the causes and risks employing the boosted regression trees (BRT) model and the grain productive capacity assessment model. The results indicate that (1) The compensatory cultivated land (CCL) has shifted uphill, with considerable fragmentation, from 2010 to 2020, and the abandonment rate reached 14.77%. (2) The factors of site condition, including elevation, patch area, and continuity of cultivated land, as well as a series of combinations, can explain the causes of abandonment. (3) The abandonment of these cultivated land areas eventually resulted in the risk of 297.48 t grain production capacity loss. The reason for the return of cultivated land to the mountains and its subsequent abandonment is the lack of consideration for the coupling relationship among site condition, use state, and function requirement, resulting in a spatial mismatch. Based on the findings, we propose a solution of the natural resources requisition-compensation balance (NRRB). To make up for the loss and reduce the risk, a spatial replacement was taken between the abandoned CCL in uphill and cultivable and available forest land (CAFL) in submontane areas CCL, optimizing the spatial pattern of land use toward Von Thunen’s agricultural circle.

Gains and losses of farmland associated with farmland protection policy and urbanization in China: An integrated perspective based on goal orientation

The Requisition-Compensation Balance of Farmland (RCBF) policy remedies the situation where valuable farmland becomes occupied for non-agricultural objectives during the rapid urbanization in China. However, there has been little systematic and provincial research on the RCBF policy. This study explores the establishment of an optimized and differentiated RCBF policy, adapted to regional resource endowments, socioeconomic developments based on the current policy system. We evaluated the holistic performance of gains and losses of farmland in Jiangsu Province from 1995 to 2015. The aims of this framework include the well-known “quantity-quality-ecological-yield” balance and a significant but undervalued farmland quality improvement object. We compared the differences between gained farmland and lost farmland using the quantity balance index, quality balance index, ecosystem service value benefits-and-losses method, and grain yield spatialization method, respectively. The structural transformation of “dry land to paddy” has been used to evaluate quality improvement. The evaluation results revealed that the challenges of “more occupation than compensation” in quantity have existed for a long time. Additionally, some ecological land was exploited to replenish the farmland, resulting in the unsustainable phenomenon of “dual development and dual loss.” Moreover, the average productivity and average utilization intensity of the gained farmland were superior to those of the lost farmland. This confirms the grain yield gap could be narrowed by increasing farmland utilization intensity. Furthermore, our results demonstrated that a low percentage of farmland in Jiangsu Province had improved in quality and that significant improvement was required. Based on these findings, we encourage Jiangsu Province to focus on improving the quality and productivity of farmland to precisely achieve “quality against quantity and yield balance” to address the quantity imbalance and the resulting ecological risks.

Monitoring and classifying cropland productivity degradation to support implementing land degradation neutrality: The case of China

Mainstreaming the land degradation neutrality (LDN) framework in national and local policy systems is critical to addressing global land degradation. However, existing land productivity assessment limits the generalization of LDN in regions with complex geographical backgrounds. To support integrating productivity balance measures into the “Requisition-Compensation Balance of Cropland” policy in China, we applied a novel cropland productivity monitoring and classification system in a case area, Yangtze River Economic Belt (YREB) in China, including four agricultural zones (i.e., large-scale, smallholder, hilly, and suburban agricultural zones), based the most active days (MAD) assessment method and the quadratic regression model. The results show that although the average productivity of YREB cropland increased from 2001 to 2017, ∼20% of the croplands are in the significant degradation hotspot areas; There is clear spatial variation in the productivity degradation in different cropping systems (i.e., single- and double-crops) and “watershed gradient” and “urban-rural gradient” are two main degradation spatial patterns; Eight major degrading types (e.g., “no degradation,” “degradation reversed,” and “continuous degradation”) are identified and the “early stage of degradation” accounts for the highest proportion. Meanwhile, the “long-term” and “accelerated degradation” of productivity in the second season of double-crops are also threats hard to ignore. These findings suggest that YREB's cropland productivity degradation process is multidimensional and complex, especially when linked to natural and human drivers. Nevertheless, this paper can support China's LDN decision-making by helping answer the key questions (i.e., where is the degradation, what is the degeneration type, and how to neutralize the degradation?) and recommending targeted neutralization strategies for the agricultural zones under various geographical backgrounds. These findings can also inform LDN policy development in the wider global region.

Evaluating Whether Farmland Consolidation Is a Feasible Way to Achieve a Balance of Potential Crop Production in Southeastern Coastal China

The requisition–compensation balance of farmland (RCBF) policy proposes that all farmland requisitioned for development must be compensated with new farmland, of which the continued implementation in economically developed counties in China faces great challenges. The extent to which a balance of potential crop production can be achieved merely through farmland consolidation has important theoretical and practical significance. This study proposes measurement procedures to investigate this degree and takes seven counties in southeastern coastal China as examples on which to conduct an empirical study. The results show the following: (1) there is a significant negative correlation between GDP and the index of the balance of potential crop production of each county, that is, the more developed the county, the lower the potential to achieve the balance; (2) with an increase in elevation, the possibility of increasing potential crop production shows an inverted U-shaped curve, with the maximum values occurring at elevations between 50 and 500 m and more attention should be paid to farmland with an elevation of between 50 m and 500 m when implementing farmland consolidation projects; (3) although it is difficult for economically developed counties to strike a balance of potential crop production merely through farmland consolidation, the potential of which to compensate for the loss of potential crop production from requisition is great, reaching more than 40%, which plays an important role in realizing the requisition–compensation balance of potential crop production; and (4) the potential of farmland consolidation to compensate for the loss of potential crop production and the difference of which between counties should be paid adequate attention when implementing RCBF policy adjustment. Therefore, the proposed approach illustrated in this study clearly reveals the relationship between the loss of potential crop production from requisition and the compensation of potential crop production by farmland consolidation, which has important implications for the adjustment of the RCBF policy in China.

Requisition–Compensation Balance Relief for Hydraulic Projects Based on Cultivated Land Quality Improvement

Requisition–compensation balance is a type of cultivated land protection system in China. The implementation of hydraulic projects has changed the natural conditions unfavorable to the development of agricultural production and effectively improved the quality of cultivated land. This means that the requisition–compensation balance of cultivated land policies for hydraulic projects should be treated differently. Starting from the example of the requisition–compensation balance of hydraulic projects, this paper analyzes the four major factors of cultivated land quality, namely nature, space, ecology, and economy, from the perspective of cultivated land quality. The productivity of cultivated land is selected as the main index. Based on the principle of ensuring the balance of total grain output value, a corresponding quantitative system is constructed. The measurement of cultivated land quality change and that change’s impact on the requisition–compensation balance of cultivated land are explored. In this paper, the constructed quantitative system is tested by taking the local reinforcement projects of Pizhou Luoma Lake and Zhongyun River as examples. Through an analysis and calculation of the selected cases, the quality of cultivated land in Pizhou City was found to have increased by 92.87%, in keeping with the balance of total grain output value. A relief strategy involving the requisition–compensation balance of cultivated land for hydraulic projects is put forward. This strategy provides the theoretical basis for the revision of the policy of requisition–compensation balance of cultivated land for hydraulic projects.

Rising agricultural water scarcity in China is driven by expansion of irrigated cropland in water scarce regions

Rising agricultural water scarcity in China is driven by expansion of irrigated cropland in water scarce regions

Urbanization in China drives farmland uphill under the constraint of the requisition–compensation balance

The slope is an important objective attribute of farmland that changes with the evolution of its spatial pattern. A growing area of plain farmland is being occupied by built-up land owing to rapid urbanization, while the newly added are sloping and terrace farmland under the constraint of the requisition–compensation balance. Researchers have focused on the horizontal spatial redistribution of farmland quantity while ignoring vertical variations in its slope, which is critical for its overall quality. Based on data on land use classification in China from 1990 to 2019, this study uses land use change trajectory as well as trend and driver analyses to identify the impact of urbanization on change in the slope of unstable farmland. The results show the following: (1) The area of unstable farmland accounted for ~20% of all farmland, with its slope increasing from 5.77° in 1990 to 6.25° in 2019 due to conversion in land use. (2) Variation in the slope of unstable farmland had significant heterogeneity, with regions undergoing a significant increase concentrated in the east and those undergoing monotonous decline not spatially clustered. (3) Farmland development and built-up land occupation have driven increases in the slope of unstable farmland with a relatively balanced effect, whereas the trend of increasing has been mainly suppressed by farmland marginalization. (4) The area of urban land expanded by 158,446.70km2 during 1990–2019, 24.15% of which was due to encroachment on farmland with a slope of 1.31°. Farmland development with a slope of 6.98° helped replenish 90.30% of the occupied area. This combined process has led to unstable farmland uphill under the constraint of the requisition–compensation balance. The results here can provide a reference for the protection and sustainable utilization of farmland.

An integrated tele-coupling analysis for requisition–compensation balance and its influence on carbon storage in China

The expansion of construction land and the reduction of farmland are two important aspects of land use change and land cover change (LUCC) that can greatly affect the terrestrial carbon balance. The requisition–compensation balance of farmland (RCBF) is an important land use policy in China, which aims to maintain the amount of farmland and prevent the unrestricted requisition of farmland for construction. This study has designed a new integrated tele-coupling framework to analyse the land use change and associated carbon storage change under the RCBF in China. The results show that on the national scale, although the quantitative balance of farmland has been achieved for the whole of China, the area of farmland in most provinces decreased, with a decrease in vegetation carbon (VC) storage of 3.7 Tg. For each province, this study finds that the more developed regions in the southeast of China have often acted as net importers, while some less developed regions have become primarily exporters with an evident expansion of construction land driven by other regions. The VC storage has decreased in most provinces due to the imbalance of farmland requisition and compensation and inappropriate compensation methods. In particular, some provinces located in the southwest of China have had the largest loss of VC storage due to their better hydrothermal conditions and relatively higher VC density. Thus, harmonious development and suitable compensation strategies, such as the farmland to forest program and environmental taxes, need to be further considered.

Spatial patterns of county-level arable land productive-capacity and its coordination with land-use intensity in mainland China

Evaluation of arable land ecosystem services capacity and arable land-use intensity (ALUI) is important for recognising key regional factors that impact arable land attributes changes, which is crucial for planning sustainable patterns of arable land use. The chronic lack of coordination between these two types of evaluation studies has made it hard to provide enough information for developing arable land-use management and control policies. Here, we generated a 1-km-grid map of arable land potential yield and county-level arable land productive-capacity. The impact of land-use and land-cover change on county-level total arable land productive-capacity during 1990–2010 had been estimated. Then we determined the aggregation–distribution characteristics of four indexes (i.e. average arable land potential yield, average ALUI, total arable land area and arable land productive-capacity reserves) at the county-level by the k-means algorithm to assess the regional coordination between arable land productive-capacity protection and arable land use. The results show that during 1990–2010, land-use change led to arable land productive-capacity decreases in 2007 of China’s 2733 counties (nearly 73.5% of the total counties’ count). Most of these counties are in central and southern China, and their corresponding arable land productive-capacity decrement rates are generally < 6.15%. Counties with decrement rates > 6.15% are mainly in the Yangtze and Pearl River delta regions. The geographical detector shows that county-level arable land-area change is a primary factor that drives county-level arable land productive-capacity increase. Its determinant power can be quantified as 74.154%. In contrast, its determinant power to county-level arable land productive-capacity decrease is only 38.542%, which demonstrates that occupy high-capacity arable land and supplement low-capacity arable land have a greater role in causing reduction of county arable land productive-capacity. Total arable land productive-capacity and use intensity show only slight determinant power to county-level arable land productive-capacity decrease. It indicates that insufficient attention has been paid to the protection of arable land productive-capacity and the farmers’ willingness in the implementation of China requisition-compensation balance policy. The aggregation–distribution characteristics show that arable land productive-capacity protection is in coordination with arable land use for most of the provinces in China. Arable land with high or medium potential yield tends to be used at high or medium intensity. A lack of coordination is most evident in the insufficient ALUI, particularly in seven of the thirteen major grain-producing provinces. Other evidence of weak coordination is in the low potential yield versus high farming conditions and willingness, where unsuited planting modes should be prevented. Lastly, challenges for exploring sustainable arable land use path have been discussed. This study is greatly instructive for recognising interrelations between natural conditions and arable land-use patterns and for exploring shortcomings that impede regionally sustainable arable land use.

The Impact of Urbanization on Farmland Productivity: Implications for China’s Requisition–Compensation Balance of Farmland Policy

The rapid growth of China’s economy since the reform in 1978 should be largely attributed to urbanization. Nonetheless, in terms of farmland productivity, urbanization may lead to perverse incentives and thus threaten food security. On the one hand, the requisition–compensation balance of farmland (RCBF) policy could reduce farmland productivity because of a “superior occupation and inferior compensation”; on the other hand, urbanization promotes the transfer of the younger labor force and thus reduces the productivity of the agricultural labor force. To investigate the undesirable effects, based on some stylized facts, this study selects 29,415 county-level samples in a Chinese county from 2000–2014 to construct an empirical model. With a new stochastic frontier analysis method that eliminates the classical econometric issues of endogeneity and heterogeneity, the empirical results show that there is a U-shaped relationship between the farmland use efficiency (productivity) and urbanization rate, indicating that only when the urbanization rate is relatively low would urbanization decrease the farmland use efficiency; in contrast, when the urbanization rate is relatively high, technical progress would obviously be accompanied by urbanization, and thus, the undesirable effects are fully offset. Furthermore, the U-shaped relationship is robust after considering the endogeneity of the urbanization rate and total-factor farmland use efficiency. With these findings, recommendations to implement sustainable management and conservation policies regarding farmland resources are made.