The Comparison of Driving Mechanism of Rural-urban Land Conversion in Different Physiognomies of Hubei Province
湖北省不同地貌类型城市农地城市流转驱动机制比较研究

At present, China is in the process of accelerating industrialization and urbanization, which greatly influences the quantity of cultivated land. Some cultivated land conversion is irreversible, especially in recent years the amount of cultivated land has decreased by a few hundred thousand hectares. Minimizing the contradictions between economic growth and cultivated land conservation is of great significance to the realization of sustainable development in China. In order to control rural-urban land conversion rationally, which is the focus of the contradictions, the driving factors should be understood thoroughly. Rural-urban land conversion patterns are influenced by a wide variety of potential driving forces and constraints which act in cities with different physiognomic features. It has been recognized that driving mechanism for rural-urban land may vary by spatial scale and multi-scale investigation of land use patterns is essential for the full understanding of its complexity. Since the physiognomy exerts great influence upon the space-distributing structure in the development of regional economy, it may also further influence the direction of land use. From the viewpoint of social and economic factors influencing rural-urban land conversion, the driving mechanism for rural-urban land conversations is analyzed in cities with different physiognomies by using the data of Hubei province from 1999 to 2004. The results show that: 1) the research purpose of driving mechanism of rural-urban land conversion in different physiognomies is to reveal the fundamental motivation of rural-urban land conversion and its interacting mechanism in typical regions, so as to simulate and predict the process of rural-urban land conversion; 2) rural-urban land conversion models varies by aggregation level, which indicates spatial scale effects. Relationships obtained in a city with certain type of physiognomy types may not be directly applied to another city with different physiognomy. The variables included in the models and their relative importance vary among rural-urban land conversion types; 3) driving mechanism of rural-urban land conversion in the different physiognomies of Hubei province changes as following: fixed assets investment, GDP and industry structure upgrade are mainly used as the conversion factors in plain cities; fixed assets investment, GDP and per capita cultivated land are use to be the main factors for the conversion in hilly cities; income gap between urban and rural residents, GDP and total population are uses as the main factors for the conversion in mountainous cities. These findings can be useful to supply ground and knowledge for establishing appropriate land use practices, and can also be important policy implications for the promotion of economical land use.