Implications of land-use change in rural China: A case studyof Yucheng, Shandong province

Yansui Liu^a,b, Ren Yang^a,c, Hualou Long^a,b,?, Jay Gao^d, Jieyong Wang^a,b

a Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, 11A Datun Road, Chaoyang District, Beijing 100101, China

b Key Laboratory of Degraded and Unused Land Consolidation Engineering, the Ministry of Land and Resources of China, Beijing 100101, China

c University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, ChinadSchool of Environment, University of Auckland, Auckland, New Zealand

Abstract: Based on surveys on rural land-use change at village scale in Yucheng City, Shandong province, this paperpresents how land-use change takes place in response to inhibitive institutional forces in light of an out-moded land ownership system and unreasonable land use rights administration, and discusses it in thebroader social context of industrialization, rural depopulation, a dual-track land market, and land uselegislation. Spatial comparison of land use maps interpreted from aerial photographs in different periodunveils a decrease in arable land for farming, and an increase in rural settlements, facilities land andunused land. Despite rural depopulation, rural settlements area nearly tripled during 1967每2008. Nearlyall newly gained non-agricultural land originated from farmland at the village fringe while formerlyfacilities land and unused land had been converted to residential use and it was abandoned later. Thus,the destructive farmland conversion from productive use to non-agricultural uses took place at multi-ple stages. Questionnaire survey of 1650 households in 48 villages in Yucheng City indicated that 41%of the households had multiple dwellings, even though some of them are not occupied or even ruined.This finding may damp the rosy picture of the reportedly slowdown in China＊s farmland reduction inrecent years as these destructive changes are too small to detect from satellite imagery, and it will alsoprovide a practical scientific basis for constituting more strict farmland protection objectives and strate-gies for China in the near future. In order to hold back the destructive conversion trend from farmland tonon-agricultural uses, the authors argue that policy and institution innovation concerning land use andurban每rural development in China needs feature highly in the government＊s agenda.

Keywords:Multi-stage land-use change; Farmland loss; Rural settlements; Institutional forces; Urban每rural development; Rural China