城市用地扩展与耕地保护

中国耕地资源不足,人均耕地不足世界水平的一半。由于快速城市化,城市用地扩展(占用耕地)和耕地保护间的矛盾已引起了国内外学者的广泛关注。对此矛盾存在两种看法,一种观点认为城市用地远比农村居住用地节约,城市化有助于减少耕地的流失;另一种观点认为中国城市用地扩张和耕地资源稀缺之间矛盾尖锐,城市用地的蔓延极可能造成耕地资源的紧张。论文针对国外城市发展水平较高的国家和我国城市发达地区的城市发展历程,探讨了在城市发展过程中,这些国家或地区的耕地资源总量的变化趋势。然后,利用由遥感解译的土地利用数字化图,分析了我国部分地区城镇人均用地和农村人均居住用地的差距。结果认为,中国城镇人均用地并不像人们想象的那样远低于人均农村居民点用地,而是较为接近;中国城市用地的扩展可能导致耕地资源的紧张。

Urban Land Expansion and Farmland Loss in China

China is a developing country with a huge population and limited arable land resour-ces.At present,mean arable land area per capita is less than half of the world average.This limited arable land shows a trend of continuously decreasing with the rapid economic development and quick urbanization in the future.This paper firstly reviewed arable land changes in the process of urbanization in some developed countries,and then analyzed arable land changes in the Suzhou-Wuxi-Changzhou Region in southern Jiangsu Province based on land use data of 1990 and 2000.It was found out that considerable arable land was lost in the process of urbanization.Between 1990 and 2000,arable land in the Suzhou-Wuxi-Changzhou Region was reduced by 10%,mainly lost due to urban and rural settlements expansion.It was also found out that per capita land use in urban area of China was very close to that in rural area in the near future.This implied that it is not realistic to reduce land requirement for settlement by urbanization.It is highly possible that the anticipated rapid urbanization will accelerate the arable land loss,further threatening the national aim of arable land protection.