The Changing Process and Mechanism of the Farming-grazing Transitional Land Use Pattern in Ordos
鄂尔多斯农牧交错土地利用格局的演变与机理

The forming process has been resumed according to historical materials and researched results. That was a process which was from nongovernmental to governmental reclamation, from Han people's tenancy to Meng and Han people's joint reclamation, and from the edge to the interior of Ordos. The changing mechanism of the farming-grazing transitional land use pattern in Ordos was discussed based on the factors of natural conditions, population pressure, economic benefit and amalgamation of nationalities, etc. The period of warm-humid climate in the Qing Dynasty provided ideal conditions for reclamation;the frangibility of the ecosystem in this area interfered with the excess reclamation. The farmland exploitation expanded toward borderland because of the unprecedented increase in Chinese population, and the wandering and dropping of the per unit area yield of cultivated land. The gradient force of population in Ordos and peripheries, the land degradation of the Loess Plateau to the repulsion for population promoted the reclamation in Ordos. Both nongovernment and government actions promoted the land reclamation in running after interest;at the same time, the scrambling for interest between the central and the local, Meng and Han, despots and paupers prevented the course of reclamation. The change in Meng and Han population structure and the common interest relation built in the process of reclamation impelled the national amalgamation. The agreement and repulsion in the national amalgamation process not only strengthened the status of agriculture, but consolidated the stockbreeding as well. The farming-grazing transitional land use pattern in Ordos was just formed and developed in the balancing process of these driving factors and obstacles.