Simulation of changes in the spatial pattern of land use in China

This paper presents a model for simulating country-wide changes in the land use pattern of China. It is based upon an empirical analysis of the spatial distribution of land use types in China which takes into account socioeconomic as well as geophysical variables. The empirical analysis indicates that a reasonably complete description of the land use distribution can be made by including demographic, soil-related, geomorphological and climatic variables. A multi-scale approach is followed to capture top-down as well as bottom-up factors affecting land use allocation. Competition between different land use types determines which changes will actually take place. The most important land use conversions in China, caused by urbanization, desertification and afforestation, are simulated for a scenario based upon a trend analysis of present land use dynamics. The spatially explicit results allow an analysis of the consequences of a decrease in cultivated area and related production capacity. A preliminary analysis shows that the average production capacity of the lost arable lands is somewhat less than the average production capacity of all agricultural lands together. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.