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Raveling the nexus between urban expansion and cropland loss in China

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Abstract

Context

The dramatic expansion of urban lands has caused widespread cropland losses in China, yet little evidence is given on the progress of such transformation spatial–temporal explicitly.

Objectives

The present study aims to disentangle the underlying interaction between urban expansion and cropland loss as well as its socioeconomic drivers and future trends.

Methods

We analyzed the extent of cropland loss resulting from urban expansion among different regions and city tiers using China’s annual land cover datasets. We then introduced the Environmental Kuznets Curve hypothesis to examine the relationship between such progressive changes and economic growth through panel data regressions. By combing the future urban land expansion datasets, we further estimated the pressure of potential cropland loss under five shared socioeconomic pathways.

Results

Urban expansion directly led to a loss of 12 Mha croplands during 1990–2019. Nearly 84% of newly built urban lands occurred on croplands, with higher-tier cities experiencing more severe and direct losses. There exists an inverted-U shape relationship between cropland-urban land conversion and economic factors in China. Most 1st, newly 1st, and 2nd tier cities followed this decoupling pattern while some of the lower-tier cities were characterized by the increase or decline mode. It is estimated that 3.9–4.9 Mha of the existing croplands will be replaced by future urban land expansion by 2050, where 2nd and 3rd tier cities will have the greatest loss in terms of accumulative area.

Conclusions

These findings highlight the important role of land use transition and adaptive planning policies in ensuring food security and achieving sustainable development goals.

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Acknowledgements

We thank the editor and two anonymous reviewers for their constructive comments and suggestions.

Funding

This study was supported by the Open Research Program of the International Research Center of Big Data for Sustainable Development Goals (CBAS2022ORP02), National Key Research and Development Program of China (2022YFB3903703, 2022YFE0209300), Science and Technology Commission of Shanghai Municipality (22dz1209602), National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC) Young Scientists Fund (AR225216), and The University of Hong Kong Seed Funding for Basic Research.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Ministry of Education Ecological Field Station for East Asian Migratory Birds, Department of Earth System Science, Institute for Global Change Studies, Tsinghua University, Beijing, 100084, China

    Ying Tu, Le Yu, Miao Li, Hong Wei & Bing Xu

  2. Future Urbanity & Sustainable Environment (FUSE) Lab, Division of Landscape Architecture, Faculty of Architecture, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong SAR, China

    Ying Tu, Bin Chen & Shengbiao Wu

  3. Urban Systems Institute, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong SAR, China

    Bin Chen & Peng Gong

  4. HKU Musketeers Foundation Institute of Data Science, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong SAR, China

    Bin Chen

  5. School of the Environment, Yale University, New Haven, CT, 06511, USA

    Yimeng Song

  6. Department of Urban and Regional Planning, School of Geography and Planning, Sun Yat-Sen University, Guangzhou, 510275, China

    Tingting Chen & Wei Lang

  7. China Regional Coordinated Development and Rural Construction Institute, Sun Yat-Sen University, Guangzhou, 510275, China

    Tingting Chen & Wei Lang

  8. Department of Geography, and Department of Earth Science, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong SAR, China

    Peng Gong

  9. International Research Center of Big Data for Sustainable Development Goals, Beijing, 100094, China

    Bing Xu

Authors
  1. Ying Tu
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  2. Bin Chen
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  3. Le Yu
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  11. Bing Xu
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Contributions

BX and BC conceived the research idea. BC and YT designed the study. YT carried out the analysis and wrote the first draft of the manuscript. All authors reviewed and edited the manuscript.

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Correspondence to Bin Chen or Bing Xu.

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Tu, Y., Chen, B., Yu, L. et al. Raveling the nexus between urban expansion and cropland loss in China. Landsc Ecol 38, 1869–1884 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10980-023-01653-7

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