A Review of Land Resource Research
土地资源学研究的回顾与前瞻

Land resource science is an integrated science which studies types of land resources, characteristics of quality and quantity, distribution with spatial-temporal changes and evolvement regulation, as well as the exploitation, utilization, protection and administration of land resources. The studies on land resources has gone through three stages:the first stage has concentrated on land type study and taxed land estimate in the early 20th century, the second stage has focused on investigation and evaluation of land resources in the middle of 20th century, the third stage has converted to land carrying capacity, land resources sustainable utilization and management in the late 20th century. From land type to land use, from land use to land resource evaluation, from land evaluation to land resource carrying capacity, from land carrying capacity to land use planning, from land planning to land resource management, land resource science have gradually grown into an independent discipline in the field of resource science until 1990s. Now, research fields of land resource science concentrate on land type and land construct, land resource investigation and land resource evaluation, land resource production and land resource carrying capacity, land resource utilization and land planning, land resource management and legislations. With the gradual extension of basic academic researches of land resource, the strengthen of national-goal-oriented applied researches and the extensive application of remote sensing, geographical information system and global position system technologies, land resource science gradually puts its research emphases on land resource sustainable utilization, land use/land cover changes, land resource carrying capacity, land gradation and classification on farmland and urban land, land planning and neaten of land resources, construction of land resource information systems, etc. basic applied and applied research fields.