Spatial-temporal dynamic change of land resource degradation in China
中国土地资源退化时空变化分析

Large scale spatial and temporal land use survey data were used to study the dynamics of land use change in China recently. With the aid of GIS, the spatial-temporal dynamic change of land resource degradation at the national level was investigated using authoritative datasets from detailed land use surveys (early 1990s approximately 2003). As a result, seven major types of land degradation processes were identified, including sandy desertification, rocky desertification, secondary salinification, non-agricultural land occupation, deforestation, natural grassland degradation and wetlands shrinking. This paper comprehensively explored the characteristics of these land degradation processes and revealed the status and trend of the holistic land resource degradation in China. Results shows that: (1) Although land degradation has been controlled in local area, but it is still continuing to spread in the whole country. The total degradation index of the holistic land resource presented fluctuating trend. Indexes of non-agricultural construction occupation and wetland shrinking process are far more than that of other process, which are two primary causes contribution to heading straight towards full-scale land resource deterioration in China. (2) Land resource degradation process of China focused on natural grass land, and non-agricultural construction land, which attained 66.27%; Land resource degradation rehabilitation mainly focused on desertification and forest restoration, which accounts for 57.5%. (3) Sandy desertification and rocky desertification process have been reversing greatly. The total net change of their quantities was decreased by 15,578km2. But most of the rehabilitation of land desertification was concentrated on the originally ecological vulnerable northwestern zone, whereas newly added desertified land has been expanding and aggravating in eastern zone, especially around river watersheds. (4) Over two-thirds of non-agriculture land expansion came from cultivated land. In addition, almost 60 percent of the loss cultivated land occupied by non-agricultural land was appeared in the Northeast, the Eastern coast and Central China where have many high productive agricultural lands of China. This kind of land degradation has threatened food security of China seriously. (5) However, large scale reclamation of ecological land transferred into cultivated land was the most dominant factor of degradation. For example, the conversion of wetland resource to croplands by reclamation accounts for over 50 percent of wetland shrinking.