China’s Land-Use Changes during the Past 300 Years

Understanding the processes of historical land-use change is crucial to the research of global environmental sustainability. Here we examine and attempt to disentangle the evolutionary interactions between land-use change and its underlying causes through a historical lens. We compiled and synthesized historical land-use change and various biophysical, political, socioeconomic, and technical datasets, from the Qing dynasty to modern China. The analysis reveals a clear transition period between the 1950s and the 1980s. Before the 1950s, cropland expanded while forested land diminished, which was also accompanied by increasing population; after the 1980s land-use change exhibited new characteristics: changes in cropland, and decoupling of forest from population as a result of agricultural intensification and globalization. Chinese political policies also played an important and complex role, especially during the 1950s-1980s transition periods. Overall, climate change plays an indirect but fundamental role in the dynamics of land use via a series of various cascading effects such as shrinking agricultural production proceeding to population collapse and outbreaks of war. The expected continuation of agricultural intensification this century should be able to support increasing domestic demand for richer diets, but may not be compatible with long-term environmental sustainability

Agriculture · China · Climate change · Economic geography · Economics · Environmental change · Geography · Land use · Land use, land-use change and forestry · Natural resource economics · Political science · Politics · Population · Population growth · Sociology · Sustainability · Conservation, Biodiversity, and Resource Management · Demography · Land Use and Ecosystem Services · Rangeland Management and Livestock Ecology · Ecology

• China’s response to a national land-system sustainability emergency

  Open Access•Brett A Bryan, Lei Gao et al.•Nature•2018

  Incluir item

• Land use and cover change in Northeast China and its impacts on the Xing'an permafrost in 1980s–2010s

  Open Access•Hongwei Wang, Huijun Jin et al.•Land Degradation and Development•2022

  Incluir item

• Green Orientalism, Brown Occidentalism and Chinese Ecological Civilization

  Open Access•J Y Heurtebise•Asian Studies•2023

  Incluir item

• Exploring Spatiotemporal Pattern of Grassland Cover in Western China from 1661 to 1996

  Open Access•Fan Yang, Fanneng He et al.•International Journal of…•2019

  Incluir item

• Detection of spatiotemporal dynamics of land cover and its drivers using remote sensing and landscape metrics (Pingtan Island, China)

  Open Access•Eshetu Shifaw, Jinming Sha et al.•Environment Development and…•2020

  Incluir item

• Effects of payment for ecosystem services and agricultural subsidy programs on rural household land use decisions in China

  Open Access•Ying Wang, Richard Bilsborrow et al.•Land Use Policy•2019

  Incluir item

• An insight into land-cover changes and their impacts on ecosystem services before and after the implementation of a comprehensive experimental zone plan in Pingtan island, China

  Open Access•Eshetu Shifaw, Jinming Sha et al.•Land Use Policy•2019

  Incluir item

• High-resolution carbon emission patterns in China driven by historical land use change from 1850 to 2015

  Open Access•Yuanyang Xiao, Jijun Meng et al.•Land Use Policy•2026

  Incluir item

• Confronting challenges of managing degraded lake ecosystems in the Anthropocene, exemplified from the Yangtze River Basin in China

  Open Access•Ke Zhang, Xiangdong Yang et al.•Anthropocene•2018

  Incluir item

• Changes in Forest Biomass Carbon Storage in China Between 1949 and 1998

  Open Access•Jingyun Fang, Anping Chen et al.•Science•2001

  Incluir item

• A reconstruction of global agricultural areas and land cover for the last millennium

  Open Access•Julia Pongratz, Christian H Reick et al.•Global Biogeochemical Cycles•2008

  Incluir item

• Greenhouse gas mitigation by agricultural intensification

  Open Access•Jennifer A Burney, Steven J Davis et al.•Proceedings of the National…•2010

  Incluir item

• Global food demand and the sustainable intensification of agriculture

  Open Access•D Tilman, Christian Balzer et al.•Proceedings of the National…•2011

  Incluir item

• The causality analysis of climate change and large-scale human crisis

  Open Access•D Zhang, David D Zhang et al.•Proceedings of the National…•2011

  Incluir item

• Agricultural intensification and changes in cultivated areas, 1970–2005

  Open Access•T K Rudel, Laura Schneider et al.•Proceedings of the National…•2009

  Incluir item

• Estimating historical changes in global land cover

  Open Access•Navin Ramankutty, Jonathan A Foley•Global Biogeochemical Cycles•1999

  Incluir item

• Global climate change, war, and population decline in recent human history

  Open Access•D Zhang, David D Zhang et al.•Proceedings of the National…•2007

  Incluir item

• Rapid urbanization in China

  Open Access•Jie Chen•CATENA•2007

  Incluir item

• Used planet

  Open Access•Erle C Ellis, Jed O Kaplan et al.•Proceedings of the National…•2013

  Incluir item

• World population stabilization unlikely this century

  Open Access•Patrick Gerland, Adrian E Raftery et al.•Science•2014

  Incluir item

• Zoonosis emergence linked to agricultural intensification and environmental change

  Open Access•Bryony A Jones, Delia Grace et al.•Proceedings of the National…•2013

  Incluir item

• Agricultural Intensification and Ecosystem Properties

  Open Access•Pamela A Matson, W J Parton et al.•Science•1997

  Incluir item

• Asian Monsoon Failure and Megadrought During the Last Millennium

  Open Access•Edward R Cook, Kevin J Anchukaitis et al.•Science•2010

  Incluir item

• Long-term trends and a sustainability transition

  Open Access•Robert W Kates, Thomas M Parris•Proceedings of the National…•2003

  Incluir item

• Ecological and socioeconomic effects of China's policies for ecosystem services

  Open Access•Jianguo Liu, Shuxin Li et al.•Proceedings of the National…•2008

  Incluir item

• The Hyde 3.1 spatially explicit database of human‐induced global land‐use change over the past 12,000 years

  Open Access•Kees Klein Goldewijk, Arthur Beusen et al.•Global Ecology and Biogeography•2011

  Incluir item

• The carbon balance of terrestrial ecosystems in China

  Open Access•Shilong Piao, Jingyun Fang et al.•Nature•2009

  Incluir item

• Spatial and temporal patterns of China's cropland during 1990–2000

  Open Access•J Liu, James H Liu et al.•Remote Sensing of Environment•2005

  Incluir item

• Tropical forests were the primary sources of new agricultural land in the 1980s and 1990s

  Open Access•Holly K Gibbs, A S Ruesch et al.•Proceedings of the National…•2010

  Incluir item

• The Fundamental Institutions of China's Reforms and Development

  Chenggang Xu•Journal of Economic Literature•2011

  Incluir item

• Food Security

  Open Access•H Charles J Godfray, John R Beddington et al.•Science•2010

  Incluir item

• Continuity and change

  Open Access•Torben Birch‐thomsen, Anette Reenberg et al.•Singapore Journal of Tropical…•2010

  Incluir item

• Agricultural Development in China 1368-1968

  Dwight H Perkins, H Perkins Dwight•Agricultural Development in China…•2017

  Incluir item

• Jevons' paradox

  Open Access•Blake Alcott•Ecological Economics•2005

  Incluir item

• Mao's War against Nature? The Environmental Impact of the Grain-First Campaign in China

  Peter Ho•The China Journal•2003

  Incluir item

• Winter half-year temperature reconstruction for the middle and lower reaches of the Yellow River and Yangtze River, China, during the past 2000 years

  Quansheng Ge, Jingyun Zheng et al.•The Holocene•2003

  Incluir item

• Winter half-year temperature reconstruction for the middle and lower reaches of the Yellow River and Yangtze River, China, during the past 2000 years

  Quansheng Ge, Jie Zheng et al.•The Holocene•2003

  Incluir item

• The story of phosphorus

  Open Access•Dana Cordell, Jan-Olof Drangert et al.•Global Environmental Change•2009

  Incluir item

• The causes of land-use and land-cover change

  Open Access•Eric F Lambin, B L Turner et al.•Global Environmental Change•2001

  Incluir item

• Forest transitions

  Open Access•T K Rudel, Oliver T Coomes et al.•Global Environmental Change•2005

  Incluir item

• Land use policy in China

  Hualou Long•Land Use Policy•2014

  Incluir item

• Land policy reform in China

  Open Access•Chengri Ding•Land Use Policy•2003

  Incluir item

• Climate Change in China

  Dajun Shen, Duo Shen et al.•AMBIO•2001

  Incluir item

• Communism and Clientelism

  Open Access•Jean C Oi•World Politics•1985

  Incluir item

• Urban Land Development under Socialism

  Open Access•Wing‐shing Tang•International Journal of Urban…•1994

  Incluir item

• Complex Land Systems

  Open Access•John A Dearing, Ademola K Braimoh et al.•Conservation Ecology•2010

  Incluir item

• Demographic Consequences of the Great Leap Forward in China's Provinces

  Xizhe Peng•Population and Development Review•1987

  Incluir item

• Climate Change and War Frequency in Eastern China over the Last Millennium

  Open Access•D Zhang, David D Zhang et al.•Human Ecology•2007

  Incluir item