An integrative approach to modeling land-use changes: multiple facets of agriculture in the Upper Yangtze basin |
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Authors: | Runsheng Yin Qing Xiang |
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Institution: | (1) Department of Forestry, Michigan State University, 126 Natural Resources Building, East Lansing, MI 48824, USA |
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Abstract: | Land change science has emerged as a fundamental component of global environmental change and sustainability research. Still,
much remains to be learned before scientists can fully assess future roles of land-use/cover changes (LUCC) in the functioning
of the Earth system and identifying conditions for sustainable land use. The objective of this paper is to gain a better understanding
of the complex interactions of human and natural drivers underlying LUCC. We do so by developing and estimating a novel structural
model of land use and using spatially explicit longitudinal observations from the Upper Yangtze basin of China. Our analysis
focuses on the multiple dimensions of agriculture—not only cropland use itself, but also grain production, soil erosion, and
related technical change—and our data cover 31 counties over four time periods from 1975 to 2000. Our results show that technical
change plays an important role in supplying food on a limited cropland; limiting cropland expansion in turn reduces soil erosion,
which then benefits grain production in the longer term. It is also found that policies and institutions have significant
impacts on land use and the status of soil erosion. Together, these results carry some great implications to sustainable land
use and ecosystem management. |
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Keywords: | |
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