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Under the background of rapid urbanization, promoting high-quality land use transformation is an important way to achieve sustainable and coordinated development of regions. The transformation of regional land use function is the inevitable result of rapid urbanization and one of the important characteristics of regional spatial function transformation and reconstruction. This study was based on the district and county scale and the dominant function of land use, and used synthetically index method, coupled coordination degree model, and geographically and temporally weighted regression model (GTWR). This paper analyzes the spatio-temporal evolution track and spatial equilibrium state of land use function transformation in the urban agglomeration around Poyang Lake under a long time series, divides the transition stage of each county and region, and reveals the driving mechanism of land use function transformation. The results show that: 1) From the perspective of temporal changes, the land use function index of the urban agglomeration around Poyang Lake increased from 0.20 to 0.55 during 2000-2020, with continuous optimization and improvement, but it was still at a medium and low level in general, showing staged characteristics and experiencing a development process of slow developm-rapid increase and slow growth. From the perspective of spatial distribution characteristics, the functional index gradually presents a spatial distribution pattern of high in the east and west, low in the east, showing a significant spatial difference. 2) The index of coordination degree of production-life -ecological function and production-life function continued to rise, while the other coupling degree and coordination degree index showed a trend of fluctuating development. The production-life function showed a low level and high coupling phenomenon from 2000 to 2010, and the life and ecological function lagged behind the development of production function from 2010 to 2015. The coupling coordination index showed a spatial distribution pattern of high in central and southwest, low in northeast and northwest, and the gap between regions and counties widened. The overall transformation is mainly low-quality, with the average number of districts and counties accounting for about 50%, but the number of districts and counties in the transition period and high-quality transformation has increased, and the quality of functional transformation has improved. The quality of land use function transformation in the central and western regions is obviously better than that in the northern and eastern regions. The high-quality transformation regions are mainly located along the Chang-jiu Economic Corridor and Xinyiping city cluster, while the eastern and northern regions are mostly low-quality transformation. 3) There are significant spatial differences in the driving effects of different influence factors. The positive driving effect of population density and urbanization level continued to increase, the negative driving effect of the proportion of secondary and tertiary industries increased, and the influence of per capita GDP, per capita fixed asset investment and per capita grain output tended to weaken. The Poyang Lake city cluster should implement differentiated development policies according to the transition stage of land use function of each district and county, make up for the development shortcomings of district and county, and enhance the coupling and coordination degree of functional systems. The research results can provide reference and decision-making basis for improving regional land use efficiency and promoting multi-functional cooperative development of land use. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To explore the spatial-temporal evolution and driving factors of cultivated land multifunctional coupling coordination development, this paper applying the data of 30 provinces in China from 2000 to 2018 evaluated cultivated land production-living-ecological functions and revealed the spatial-temporal evolution of cultivated land multifunction with kernel density estimation and visualization mapping. Furthermore, this paper adopted coupling coordination degree model to analyze the cultivated land multifunctional coupling coordination development. Finally, this paper explored driving factors and driving mechanism of cultivated land multifunctional coupling coordination development by geographical detector. The results showed that: 1) from the perspective of temporal evolution, cultivated land production function level showed a fluctuation evolution trend of “rising-falling-rising”, the living function level showed an evolution trend of “rising-falling”, and the ecological function level increased slightly. All cultivated land functions had polarized characteristics. From the perspective of spatial pattern, the cultivated land production function level changed within [0.030, 0.608], showing a non-equilibrium spatial pattern of “high in the east, low in the west”. The living function level changed within [0.042, 0.672], showing a non-equilibrium spatial pattern of “high in the north, low in the south”. The ecological function level changed within [0.058, 0.897], showing a non-equilibrium spatial pattern of “high in the west, low in the east”. The areas with high level of production and living function were concentrated in the Northeast Plain, the Huang-Huai-Hai Plain and the Yangtze Region. The areas with low level of production function were located in the northwest and southwest regions, and the areas with low level of living function were located in the Beijing-Tianjin, Yunnan-Guizhou and southern regions in China. The area with high level of ecological function areas were located in the northeast and southwest regions, while the low-level areas were located in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region, the Yangtze River Delta region and the central region of the Yangtze River. 2) The cultivated land multifunctional coupling coordination level changed within [0.093, 0.554], and the overall level had steadily improved but was still low. The cultivated land multifunctional coupling coordination levels of most provinces were still out of balance. The spatial pattern of cultivated land multifunctional coupling coordination level showed an evolution trend of agglomeration and promotion. In detail, the cultivated land multifunctional coupling coordination level of the northeast China, Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region and the Yangtze River Delta were relatively high, while that was low in the northwestern part of China. 3) The evolution of cultivated land multifunctional coupling coordination level was significantly affected by the business entities conditions, agricultural development level, industrial development level and urbanization level. In short, the driving force of the business entities conditions and urbanization level were more significant than that of the agricultural development level and industrial development level. Moreover, the interaction type of two driving factors was two-factor enhancement or nonlinear enhancement, which indicated that the driving force of various factors had obvious divergence and interaction of factors positively strengthened the single-factor driving force, indicated that the divergence and interaction of various driving factors positively strengthened the single-factor driving force. In conclusion, the research results provide the guiding effect for deepening the study on cultivated land multifunction and decision support for promoting the differential governance of cultivated land resources and mutual promotion of cultivated land functions. To explore the spatial-temporal evolution and driving factors of cultivated land multifunctional coupling coordination development, this paper applying the data of 30 provinces in China from 2000 to 2018 evaluated cultivated land production-living-ecological functions and revealed the spatial-temporal evolution of cultivated land multifunction with kernel density estimation and visualization mapping. Furthermore, this paper adopted coupling coordination degree model to analyze the cultivated land multifunctional coupling coordination development. Finally, this paper explored driving factors and driving mechanism of cultivated land multifunctional coupling coordination development by geographical detector. The results showed that: 1) from the perspective of temporal evolution, cultivated land production function level showed a fluctuation evolution trend of “rising-falling-rising”, the living function level showed an evolution trend of “rising-falling”, and the ecological function level increased slightly. All cultivated land functions had polarized characteristics. From the perspective of spatial pattern, the cultivated land production function level changed within [0.030, 0.608], showing a non-equilibrium spatial pattern of “high in the east, low in the west”. The living function level changed within [0.042, 0.672], showing a non-equilibrium spatial pattern of “high in the north, low in the south”. The ecological function level changed within [0.058, 0.897], showing a non-equilibrium spatial pattern of “high in the west, low in the east”. The areas with high level of production and living function were concentrated in the Northeast Plain, the Huang-Huai-Hai Plain and the Yangtze Region. The areas with low level of production function were located in the northwest and southwest regions, and the areas with low level of living function were located in the Beijing-Tianjin, Yunnan-Guizhou and southern regions in China. The area with high level of ecological function areas were located in the northeast and southwest regions, while the low-level areas were located in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region, the Yangtze River Delta region and the central region of the Yangtze River. 2) The cultivated land multifunctional coupling coordination level changed within [0.093, 0.554], and the overall level had steadily improved but was still low. The cultivated land multifunctional coupling coordination levels of most provinces were still out of balance. The spatial pattern of cultivated land multifunctional coupling coordination level showed an evolution trend of agglomeration and promotion. In detail, the cultivated land multifunctional coupling coordination level of the northeast China, Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region and the Yangtze River Delta were relatively high, while that was low in the northwestern part of China. 3) The evolution of cultivated land multifunctional coupling coordination level was significantly affected by the business entities conditions, agricultural development level, industrial development level and urbanization level. In short, the driving force of the business entities conditions and urbanization level were more significant than that of the agricultural development level and industrial development level. Moreover, the interaction type of two driving factors was two-factor enhancement or nonlinear enhancement, which indicated that the driving force of various factors had obvious divergence and interaction of factors positively strengthened the single-factor driving force, indicated that the divergence and interaction of various driving factors positively strengthened the single-factor driving force. In conclusion, the research results provide the guiding effect for deepening the study on cultivated land multifunction and decision support for promoting the differential governance of cultivated land resources and mutual promotion of cultivated land functions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the era of land spatial consolidation under the background of ecological civilization construction, ecological restoration of territorial space is an important method to improve the ecosystem service function and optimize the spatial structure. According to the method and practice demand of the current ecological restoration of provincial territorial space in the ecological fragile areas of Northwest China, this paper took the county (district) as the basic research unit, combined the supply-demand analysis of ecosystem services with the ecological restoration of land space, used the modified ecosystem service value equivalent to quantify the supply of ecosystem services, and measured the total demand of ecosystem services based on the per capita demand of specified ecosystem services. Finally, this paper explored the method of provincial ecological restoration based on the difference of coupling index between supply and demand of ecosystem services. Gansu Province is an important water conservation area of the Yellow River and the Yangtze River, but it has been trapped with the problem of the mismatch between the supply and demand of ecosystem services for a long time, the human-environment contradiction is increasingly prominent, and the ecological environment problems such as soil erosion and vegetation destruction occur frequently. Based on the physical geographic environment and ecosystem characteristics of Gansu Province, the supply- demand analysis of food supply, carbon sequestration and oxygen release, water conservation and soil conservation services were conducted, and the spatial distribution traits were analyzed. Secondly, based on the supply-demand coupling status of four ecosystem services, the dominant mode of ecosystem services supply-demand coupling in each county (District) were identified. Thirdly, the paper identified the dominant restrictive factors and adjustability of the coupling mode of ecosystem services supply and demand, and then proposed the ecological protection and restoration and its leading direction according to the principle of "protecting ecological source areas and repairing damaged areas". The empirical result of case study in Gansu Province informs us that: 1) in addition to food supply services, the total supply of water conservation services, carbon sequestration and oxygen release services and soil conservation services in counties of Gansu Province is greater than the total demand, but there is a significant spatial mismatch between supply and demand. 2) There are four modes of supply-demand coupling condition in Gansu Province, which are “high supply and high demand”, “low supply and high demand”, “high supply and low demand”, and “low supply and low demand”, and the latter two are the dominant two modes. 3) According to the difference between the supply and demand of regional ecosystem services and the coupling mode of supply and demand, Gansu Province was divided into four ecological restoration regions: Oasis conservation, carbon sequestration, water conservation and soil conservation. Based on the physical geographical environment and regional ecological problems, the 4 regions were further divided into 12 sub regions, and corresponding ecological protection and restoration engineering suggestions were proposed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Rational construction of a well-facilitated farmland become necessary for food security and modern agriculture in China. In farmland construction, the automatic management of spatial data can benefit to accurately distinguish well-facilitated farmland from the various land types. Various discriminating ways of well-facilitated farmland are adopted due to the different influence factors of agricultural production in in different regions, where the spatial distribution and structural features of well-facilitated farmland are quite different from place to place across the country. Most of the previous studies focus mainly on policies, benefit evaluation, preliminary planning and design in the well-facilitated farmland construction. There is still lacking on the studies of the discrimination and analysis for the regional structural features of the well-facilitated farmland. In this paper, a framework of an index system was constructed to identify the spatial distribution and structural features of the well-facilitated farmland using the law of spatial differentiation together with the related national standards and strategic planning, ranging from the scale and shape of farmlands, irrigation and drainage facilities, traffic accessibility, and farmland protection ratio. The identifying system was designed on the basis of the index framework with C#. NET and Arc Object. Subsequently, the proposed system was verified for its availability by taking a case study of a Loess Plateau and a southern mountainous region. The results were as follows: (1) In the Loess Plateau area, the standard rate of the farmland scale, farmland shape, irrigation and drainage facilities, traffic accessibility was 87.01%, 83.12%, 80.52%, 90.91% and 83.12%, respectively. The well-facilitated farmland area can be identified by the system was 38.33 hm² with the total discriminating precision was 94.38%. There were some farmlands that did not meet the requirements of the well-facilitated farmland, such as incomplete irrigation and drainage facilities, the irregular shapes of the fields that distributed in the branch furrow and furrow head around the farmland. (2) In the southern mountainous area, the standard rate of all spatial features was 100%. The well-facilitated farmland area that identified by the system was 30.07 hm², which was 10.34 hm² higher than that of the state-approved well-facilitated farmland. The high identified areas can be because some fields that meet the requirements of well-facilitated farmland have not been classed as the permanent basic farmland in some administrative regions. When regardless of this classification, the total discrimination precision was 100%. This index system can be used in different scenarios, such as macro monitoring and evaluation, project design and inspection of the well-facilitated farmland. This system was also applied for the Northeast Plain, North China Plain, Loess Plateau and southern mountainous regions, while the key elements of the spatial features of well-facilitated farmland construction can be detected with a reliable discriminant resolution. When combining with the remote sensing technology, the index system can help automatic management to know the real-time spatial data of well-facilitated farmland construction. Therefore, the developed system can be successfully applied to identify the extract well-facilitated farmland in the construction area, and then to analyze the obtained spatial data in real time, finally to implement automatic management for well-facilitated farmland construction. Furthermore, the proposed system in this paper can offer a promising reference to the current comprehensive supervision platform, and improve the management effectiveness of well-facilitated farmland construction in modern agriculture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Accurate, reliable and timely acquisition of data for spatial planning of land are prerequisite for the “dual evaluation” and “three types of spatial planning” division and pattern optimization, and the preparation of land and spatial planning. Current data of land surveys, urban and rural land usage, and various geographical classification systems have different classification standards and many data sources, so it is urgent to optimize of the land-use classification system, construct land classification conversion rules and identification methods based on multi-source data. This paper preliminary investigates the territorial planning and land classification system using the inductive comparison method. Compared with the former planning, the latest national territory planning system comprise by major functional area, land utilization and urban rural land planning. As the identification of territory classification is the basic data for land geo-spatial planning. This paper takes Hebi, Henan for example to construct the terrestrial spatial classification system and identifying terrestrial space types based on multi-source data. Hebi has large potential improvement and optimization in terms of ecological transformation and development motivation. Combined with the third national investigation of the territory classification, inductive comparison method is used to explore the classification system of territorial space and land transformation and convergence rules of the existing spatial classification system to achieve effective consecutive connection between municipal scale and multiple classification system based on the comprehensive comparative analysis method. Steps are as follows : firstly, unified coordinate system and attribute structure for multi-source data; secondly, through the spatial superposition analysis of GIS, the spatial superposition analysis of unified good data is carried out, and the reference unit of land class identification under multi-source data is constructed, so that each polygon unit has multi-source data attribute structure; thirdly, the criterion of national land class identification is constructed to solve the problem of land classification conversion conflict of multi-source data; finally, the convergence criterion and combination recognition of land classification are modified based on remote sensing image data. The results show that the land use spatial classification system is divided into four first-level categories: ecological protection land, land for agricultural production and living, land for urban development and regional facility land, 12 second-level categories and 45 third-level categories. This paper establishes the criteria of land class connection conversion and the method of fusion identification, and completes the identification of land classification for the land space planning based on the multi-source data. In 2017, the total land area of Hebi City is 2140.43 km2, the area of ecological protection land, land for agricultural production and living, land for urban development and the facility land are 453.95, 1531.53, 121.06 and 33.89 km2, respectively. This paper provides data support for Hebi City to carry out “ecological/agricultural/urban three types of space” division and pattern optimization, “dual evaluation”, and planning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is a complex interaction mechanism between land intensive use and regional ecological efficiency, and research on their coupling coordination is of great significance to promote urban sustainable development and construction of ecological civilization. Based on the definition of land intensive use and regional ecological efficiency, this paper established an evaluation index system to measure land intensive use and regional ecological efficiency respectively. Firstly, the entropy weight method and the non-expected output super-efficient SBM model were employed to evaluate and measure the land intensive use degree and regional ecological efficiency of 284 prefecture-level cities from 2004 to 2016 in China respectively. Secondly, the coupling coordination degree model was adopted to evaluate their coordination degree, and the paper analyzed the spatial-temporal evolution characteristics of coupling coordination degree.The spatial auto-correlation method was employed to measure the spatial correlation pattern of the coupling coordination degree between intensive land use and regional ecological efficiency. The results showed that the coordination of land intensive use and regional ecological efficiency of prefecture-level city was in a mild imbalance stage at present in the whole, and the coupling coordination degree between the two increased over the time.The spatial distribution of the coordination between land intensive use and regional ecological efficiency showed a pattern of “higher in the mid and east, lower in the west”; and the spatial distribution of the coupling coordination degree between the two had little transformation over the time.The global spatial auto-correlation results showed that there was a significant positive correlation of the coupling coordination degree between land intensive use and regional ecological efficiency, and the correlation degree between the two increased first and then weakened over the time.The results of local spatial auto-correlation analysis showed that there were four types of the coordination spatial association between land intensive use and regional ecological efficiency, these were the spatial positive correlation type including high-high aggregation (HH) and low-low aggregation (LL) and the spatial negative correlation type including high-low aggregation (HL) and low-high aggregation (LH).The results showed that spatial positive correlation type of HH and LH were mainly distributed in the east, and the spatial negative correlation type of HL and LL were mainly distributed in the middle region,the types of HH,LH and LL emerged as the shape of cluster and always had a powerful agglomeration, and the LH type distributed discretely; except for the HL type, the overall pattern of the spatial distribution of the other types were stable over the time relatively and only the number increased or decreased partially. The major findings derived from the study can be summarized as follows: it is necessary to implement scientific environmental economic and environmental technology policies, strengthen differentiated monitoring and management of cities, carry out district management and control rationally and promote technical and innovation cooperation between cities. Only in this way, can we enhance the coordination of land intensive use and regional ecological efficiency, then promote the sustainable development of the cities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An important measure to ensure the national food security and improve the quality of arable land is to demarcate the prime farmland scientifically and reasonably. There are three types of evaluation units for delimiting prime farmland, mainly including administrative villages, plots and grids. Compared with the other two types, grid can not only break the constraints of irregular geographic data, improve the ability of data update and retrieval, but also integrate, share and use information resources, which is easy to locate in the space. In the current research field, the demarcation of prime farmland is generally carried out in a uniform grid environment. If using large-scale uniform grid, however, the area of small and scattered arable land will have a large error. Although using small-scale uniform grid can reduce the area error, there are other problems such as large amount of data and high redundancy. The advantages of non-uniform grid are obvious. Its data volume is far less than that of uniform grid, which effectively reduces the frequency of invalid data search. And, the efficiency of data retrieval and transmission can be improved. “Centralized and continuous, high quality” is the requirement of realizing the construction of prime farmland with high spatial standard. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to establish a method to divide and express prime farmland by using arable land concentricity and arable land quality index with the non-uniform grid environment. Wenxi County of Shanxi Province is taken as the research area. The research methods of the paper are as follows: to construct non-uniform grid and multi-scale uniform grid with the help of Arc-Engine secondary development platform; Comparing the expression error of arable land area and the data amount of grid, and then analyzing the advantage of non-uniform grid in cultivated land expression. Focusing on the contiguous land and the quality of cultivated land evaluates the spatial distribution of cultivated land. The results show that the arable land is divided into permanent protection type, quality improvement type, key management type and reserve management type by the method of spatial superposition; On the basis of the connotation of prime farmland, demarcating and expressing prime farmland. Using non-uniform grid can not only reduce data redundancy, but also achieve small error expression of arable land information. The delimitation results of prime farmland in Wenxi County meet the requirements of “centralized, continuous and high quality”. The area of prime farmland accounts for 83.22% of the total area of farmland, and the demarcation proportion conforms to the national regulations. The non-uniform grid can well express the spatial distribution of prime farmland. Obviously, this method is suitable for the demarcation of prime farmland and provides a new way for expressing prime farmland better. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is necessary to scientifically divide village lands and further propose a differentiated governance strategy, which is the premise and basis to plan village development and reduction of construction lands. Generally, the village land is characterized by “large amount, scattered layout, low efficiency and poor environment”. Beijing has entered the era of “reduction development”. In Miyun District, the lands are governed scientifically, and it is of great significance to optimize ecological spatial pattern and protect ecological environment. The renovation of village land is a complex and systematic project, which is affected by the natural environment conditions, economic development level, development and construction conditions and location conditions of rural areas. Taking Miyun District of Beijing as a case, based on land use, points of interest and social statistics data, this paper constructed a land suitability evaluation model in view of natural conditions and land patterns. Moreover, the evaluation model was built for village development status from four angles - location conditions, infrastructure，ecological conditions and resource industry，then systematically analyzed village land suitability, village development status and their combination, and divided the type of village lands in the end. The results showed that: 1) The suitability index of village land in Miyun District is between 33-97, the village lands in Miyun District were mostly suitable, but in a trend of decreasing from southwest to northeast; 2) The village development index of Miyun District is between 22.2 and 78.7, villages with higher development index were mainly located in the area around Miyun city in the southwest region, followed by the central part around the Miyun reservoir area, and those in northern area were underdeveloped; 3) based on the evaluation results of both, the village lands in the whole district were divided into nine groups that were further classified into four village types. Among them, the area around Miyun city in southwest was filled with urbanization development types, where it was appropriate to implement governance strategies on urbanization development; in eastern and northern regions, there were villages of adjusted-optimization development types, and governance strategies for adjustment and optimization could be applied; accordingly, the construction and improved development types were mainly distributed around the urbanization development types in the southeast and surrounding areas of Miyun reservoir, with the orientation as construction, improvement and development. In addition, one could find that the villages of reduced development type were available in the northeast and northwest of Miyun District, and it was recommended that reduction development strategy could be implemented. Through research, the author provided the technical basis for the efficient and orderly utilization of village lands. Undoubtedly, village governance aims not only to achieve “reduction”, but also “increase” in some areas, as the healthy development of a village depended on both increase and decrease. In a word, village governance is so complicated that it involves in many aspects and multiple departments. In this paper, the author divided village lands based on village development and village land suitability. The research results were of reference value to provide methods on regional village development planning and reduction of construction lands. However, to be frank, the specific governance measures should also take macro development policies and public preferences into account. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this paper is to estimate the potential of rural residential consolidation in the village scale of the mountain region scientifically in order to improve the conversion rate of high-quality cultivated land and the level of land intensive use, which was supported by the results of cadastral survey in the sampling villages. Firstly, the Pearson correlation coefficient was used to calculate the linear relationship between the value of the characteristic indices about houses containing all forms of the building structure and their auxiliary facilities and the value of the characteristic indices about the rural residents; Secondly, based on the existence of the linear relationship, a linear regression equation between the value of the characteristic indices about houses containing the form of the building structure that the poor lived in and their auxiliary facilities and the value of the characteristic indices about the rural residents was constructed by the partial least squares regression model, and the number of houses containing the form of the building structure that the poor lived in and their auxiliary facilities was estimated in every unit; Thirdly, based on the results of cadastral survey in the sampling villages, the average building area of houses containing the form of the building structure that the poor lived in and their auxiliary facilities were estimated, so as to measure the area of houses containing the form of the building structure that the poor lived in and their auxiliary facilities in every unit; Fourth, based on the willingness of farmers in the results of the survey, the houses containing the form of the building structure that the poor lived in and their auxiliary facilities were defined as the building structure form and the ancillary facilities that were suitable for consolidation, combined with the land idle rate, the final comprehensive potential of rural residential consolidation was calculated. The results showed that the potential area of the entire Yunyang area measured by the land idle rate method was 616.956 hm², and the revised comprehensive potential was 1 661.248 hm² . The area compared with consolidation potential measured by the method of per capita construction land standard was still small, but compared with the traditional land idle rate method, the results have been improved significantly, and there was a feasible potential transformation path. In summary, in the process of calculating the potential of rural residential consolidation, this paper fully considered the actual needs of farmers and major national policies, therefore, there were policy support such as Targeted Poverty Alleviation, Rural Revitalization and farmers support in the process of potential transformation, which can accelerate the transformation of the potential and ensure the quality and quantity of transformation, which in turn serves the implementation of major national policies and strategies, and is a reliable path to realization. Also, it is possible to consolidate the idle land inside the rural residents into cultivated land, which reduces the possibility of cultivated land abandoning. On the other hand, from the microscopical level of the internal structure of rural residents in the administrative villages, the comprehensive potential of rural residents in every village, township, and entire research area can be measured, so it is possible to guide the large-scale calculation of the potential of rural residential consolidation according to the framework of this paper. Thus, the proposed potential measurement method has important reference value for the potential measurement in different scales. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Land use and coverage change (LUCC) is an important research field of global change. Currently, land use and coverage change research focuses on the analysis of land use structures during the same period, and structure changes in the overall quantity of land use between time-series periods. While, the study of quantitative analysis of land use evolution process in different periods is deficient, which results difficulty to profoundly reveal the temporal and spatial patterns and evolution laws that may exist in the process of land change. Therefore, in this paper, we proposed a spatiotemporal pattern analysis of land use change based on the spatiotemporal process of land use. In this paper, the spatiotemporal variation sequence data of land use was the study object. Firstly, the spatiotemporal variation sequence of land use intensity in the study area was extracted by the spatiotemporal network. Secondly, as the basic measurement tool, the cumulative value of land use intensity change (CVLUIC) of different spatiotemporal variation sequences of land use was calculated. Thirdly, the CVLUIC is divided into three grades by K-means clustering. Finally, the spatiotemporal clustering analysis of different land use change grades was carried out. From the global perspective, the spatiotemporal pattern of land use change process was measured by the nearest neighbor distance analysis method. On the other hand, based on Ripley's k function, the multi-scale impact of traffic network on land use temporal and spatial change patterns was analyzed. The results showed that the dramatic land use intensity change (Type I) and the gradual land use intensity change (Type III) over the 10-year period from 2008 to 2017 in the study area showed significant clustering characteristics. While, the spatiotemporal clustering characteristics of the more severe land use intensity change (Type II) between Type I and Type III was not significant, The results showed that the human disturbance activities have obvious spatiotemporal heterogeneity during the study period. Additionally, the traffic network had a strong influence on land use and coverage change. The three types of land use intensity were clustered in the range close to the traffic network (in the range of 300 m and 600 m), and tend to be randomly distributed in the farther distance (within 900 m), which showed that the transportation network had a strong impact on land use change. At different spatial scales from the transportation network, the dramatic land use intensity change (Type I) and the gradual land use intensity change (Type III) showed significant significance on the small spatial scale, while the more severe land use intensity change (Type II) at multiple scales was not significant. This indicated that there were scale differences in the impact of transportation network on spatial and temporal changes of land use degree, and more extreme land use change processes (Type I and Type III) were more likely to show spatial and temporal aggregation. Through analyzing the land use change from the perspective of the spatiotemporal evolution process, our work will be useful supplement to the LUCC research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Rural settlements bear the important functions of farmers' production and life, which is the core expression of the human-land relationship in rural areas. In order to meet the production demand, farmers tend to establish settlements close to various industries. The development of secondary and tertiary industries in rural areas is backward, and settlements are mainly scattered around cultivated land. In view of the scattered distribution, economic poverty and functional weakness in rural settlements, the study on the consolidation mode based on local conditions will effectively promote the process of rural spatial reconstruction. Industrial development, as the core power of rural revitalization, is a key factor in the planning of rural settlements. Under the background of “national spatial planning” policy and “rural revitalization” policy, rural development should be comprehensive and multi-dimensional, emphasizing the people-oriented, spatial carrier and industrial development as the core driving force to realize the coordinated development of rural nature, society, economy and ecological system, as well as the comprehensive improvement of production, ecology, life and cultural functions. As an activity to improve farmers' production, living conditions and rural ecological environment, rural settlement consolidation should emphasize the evaluation of total factors of the relationship between people and the life community of mountains, rivers, forests, fields, lakes and grasses, as well as the coordination of production, life and ecological space. Existing studies on industry and consolidation mode mostly focus on the accessibility, suitability and coordination of production space, and seldom discuss the multi-dimensional guidance and driving effect of industry status and development prospect. In terms of the study areas, there is little attention paid to the township. As “industry first” is the key to “targeted poverty alleviation” policy, researches which study in township areas will be more accurate and effective to implement the “industrial poverty alleviation” policy. In the above conditions, this paper took Wuyang Township as a case study, which is located in western Hubei eco-zone. Based on industrial guiding and overall coordination, we carried out comprehensive assessments of the development potential in rural settlements dominated by multi-dimensional industry, and identified the consolidation modes and development directions according to industry status, industry radiation and industry convergence. The results showed that the consolidation modes of the study area mainly included five categories: comprehensive development mode, steady industry development mode, industry radiation mode, industry convergence mode and industry cultivation mode, which were distributed in circles with Wuyang Village as the centre. Differentiated consolidation modes of rural settlements are the keys to ensure the actual implementation of consolidation plans, this work constructs the novel consolidation modes and zoning of rural settlements under the guidance of multi-dimensional industry, which can make the regional characteristic organic industry and tourism industry reach the coordination stage, guarantee the rural ecological security, and promote the integrated development of industry. What is more, this paper breaks through the restriction of administrative boundaries, so as to combine the capital and technology of advanced villages with the natural resources and labour force of backward villages under the condition of clear property rights. In this way, we can solve the shortage of unbalanced development among villages, strengthening the collective economy and promoting the rapid development of rural local industries. This work is expected to contribute to the implementation of the “rural revitalization” strategy and the “industrial poverty alleviation” policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cultivated land use zoning is an important part of China's land use management, and it is an important basis for guiding the future development of cultivated land in the region. It is the key to enhance the feasibility of the management of cultivated land use. Most studies have focused on the selection of zoning elements and indicators for cultivated land use, often overlooking the spatial connectivity between the cultivated land use partition units and the integrity of administrative divisions, directly affecting the zoning management effect of cultivated land use. How to adopt the scientific zoning method, and take into account the differences, similarities and spatial connectivity between partitioned units is an urgent problem to be solved. In order to guide the orderly development of regional space according to local conditions, alleviate the pressure of cultivated land protection and enhance the value of cultivated land, in this paper, Liaoning Province was taken as research area, and two-dimensional graph theory clustering and GIS spatial analysis were adopted. Based on the zoning indicators of cultivated land use quality, output and efficiency, the comprehensive zoning of cultivated land use was carried out, and the utilization direction of cultivated land in each district was explored. The results showed that: 1) There were some spatial differences in the natural quality, output level and use efficiency of cultivated land among the counties (cities) in the study area. The high-value areas were mainly distributed in the central and northern areas of Liaoning. The low-value areas were mainly distributed in the east and south of Liaoning Province, while the western areas were uneven. 2) The research area was divided into five cultivated land use areas: Grain production and ecological protection area in western Liaoning, pilot area of comprehensive development of cultivated land in central Liaoning, paddy field and characteristic agricultural planting area in eastern Liaoning, potential tapping area of cultivated land efficiency and productivity in southern Liaoning and transformation and upgrading area of cultivated land utilization in central and Southern Liaoning. 3) The zoning method combining two-dimensional graph theory clustering and GIS spatial analysis effectively guaranteed the connectivity of the adjacent unit space of the cultivated land and the integrity of the administrative boundary, which has good applicability to the cultivated land use zoning; it was conducive to the unified management and implementation of the use of cultivated land. This paper selected the cultivated land use quality, output level and utilization efficiency as key indicators to reflect the status of cultivated land use, and to divide cultivated land into different utilization areas, and combined with the main functional area planning to determine the future direction of cultivated land use, it has certain practical reference value for comprehensive guidance of regional cultivated land use and development. The cultivated land use zoning results neglect the difference between the internal units of individual zoning to some extent, but this difference has to be neglected in order to achieve spatial connectivity. To better realize the cultivated land use, it is necessary to formulate differentiated cultivated land use guidance policies and guarantee mechanisms according to the actual conditions of each area to ensure the effective implementation of cultivated land use management. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Poverty has always been a worldwide problem, especially for developing countries. The agricultural industry poverty alleviation is one of the most effective methods to improve the ability of the poor, improve the livelihood level of the rural family, and achieve sustainable development in the future. With the introduction and implementation of the "precise poverty alleviation concept" by the Chinese government, analyses of whether agricultural industry's precise poverty alleviation can become an effective way to increase the income of the poor or not, determination of what are the leading factors of the spatial and temporal differentiation of agricultural industry poverty alleviation efficiencies, and further scientifically revealing the poverty alleviation efficiency of the agricultural industry and its mechanism are of vital importance. The previous research mainly focuses on the field of economics, however, in this paper, we used innovative analysis for this research problem from a geospatial perspective using Wanzhou District, a national poverty-stricken county in the Southwestern Mountainous Area with a rate of alleviate poverty of 88% from the year 2013 to 2018 under the government program. The main innovations of this paper included that (1) an indicator system was constructed for factors that affected agricultural industry poverty alleviation efficiency based on the spatial perspective, and the industrial poverty alleviation efficiency was measured by the improved DEA efficiency model, spatial autocorrelation Global Moran’s I model and geo-detector; (2) a framework of action mechanisms between dominant influencing factors and industrial poverty alleviation efficiency was established. The spatial and temporal evolution characteristics of agricultural industry poverty alleviation efficiency, and its dominant influencing factors in 41 townships in the study area in 2013, 2015 and 2018 were further analyzed by the natural breakpoint classification method, Moran index, and geo-detector, and (3) a framework of the dominant factors that affected the efficiency of industrial poverty alleviation was set up, which can be conducive to improving China's anti-poverty model and the mechanism of industrial poverty alleviation, and further provided decision-making suggestions to alleviate the multi-dimensional poverty in the rural areas of the southwestern mountainous area. Moreover, the data in this paper were collected from the Chinese agricultural sector, the township government departments, the poverty alleviation office and the national land department, which was really reliable, the software such as SPSS 25.0，Arcgis10.2 and GeoDa095 were used for analysis. The main conclusions and policy recommendations of this paper were, (1) the industrial poverty alleviation policy had effectively promoted the overall increase in the poverty alleviation efficiency of the county industry in the southwestern mountainous area. Its policy intervention had a positive effect on promoting the poverty alleviation of the poor, the longer the intervention time, the more obvious the efficiency of industrial poverty alleviation, especially in deep poverty towns. (2) The industrial poverty alleviation efficiency showed obvious high-value clusters and low-value clusters. The high-value gathering area was located in the flat dam area along the Yangtze River with abundant water resources and flat terrain. The low-value gathering area was concentrated in the high-altitude mountainous area with a steep slope. (3) The substitution of family and economic factors by policy factors and social factors had become the two main types of factors affecting the efficiency of industrial poverty alleviation in Wanzhou District, and the influence of policy factors was greater than that of social factors. Specifically, with the continuous implementation of the precise poverty alleviation policy, the five major social factors of road density, characteristic planting, labor skill training, agricultural insurance and poverty alleviation credit funds, market participation and human resources level gradually replaced the family economy factor, and became the leading influencing factors for the poverty alleviation efficiency. Finally, this paper offers several feasible suggestions for policy direction and future research according to the research results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Calculating the potential of rural residential consolidation is the basis and key to the establishment of rural residential consolidation projects. However, according to the existing definition and calculation method of rural residential consolidation potential, it cannot measure the transformation potential of dangerous houses and cannot meet the current requirements of rural residential consolidation. To solve these problems, this paper summarized the definitions of rural residential land consolidation potential proposed by domestic scholars in recent years. Based on the definition of rural residential area and rural residential land consolidation, this paper redefined the definition of rural residential land consolidation potential via considering rural building safety. Then, according to the causes of the rural residential hollow in the study area, this paper proposed a method of calculating the consolidation potential based on the classification of rural residential land. The potential of residential consolidation in Xiatujing village can be calculated using this method as an example. The potential of rural residential land consolidation refers to the ability to improve the intensity of rural residential land use and the living and production conditions of rural residents by using engineering technology and adjusting land property rights and other measures, removing and consolidating existing rural residential areas. It includes two parts: The potential of land use spatial expansion and the potential of improving the living conditions of villagers. The former refers to the area of cultivated land and other land that can be increased through rural residential consolidation, while the latter refers to the area of rural residential land that can be improved through rural residential consolidation. This paper proposed the method of calculating the consolidation potential based on the classification of rural residential land. Rural residential land can be divided into three levels. The first level can be divided into five categories according to land use, including residential land, public service land, infrastructure land, industrial land and other construction land. According to the safety of construction facilities, the first four primary land use categories are divided into three secondary categories: Safety, unsafe and lack of use function. And the third level, according to the use status of construction facilities, can be classified into three categories: Use, idle and abandoned. Other construction land will not be divided into second and third levels. The calculation of consolidation potential defined the land of unsafe and lack of use function in second level, unutilized land and corner land in other construction land as the potential of consolidation. The potential that continues to be used as residential land after consolidation was defined as the potential to improve living conditions, while the remaining potential was defined as the potential of land use expansion. According to the difficulty in land consolidation, the land of unsafe and use was defined as the potential of difficult realization, and the remaining potential was defined as the potential of easy realization. With the calculation method of consolidation potential of residential land classification, the consolidation potential of Xiatujing village can be calculated. The results show that the potential of residential consolidation is 10.66 hm2, the potential of improving living conditions is 0.76 hm2, the potential of land use expansion is 9.90 hm2, the potential of easy realization is 8.19 hm2, and the potential of difficult realization is 2.47 hm2.The method of calculating the potential of rural residential consolidation can not only be used to calculate the area of increased cultivated land and other land, but also the area of land used in rural residential transformation. Based on the calculation results of consolidation potential, rural residential can be consolidated to achieve the goal of rural dangerous housing transformation and hollow village consolidation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Soil erosion and ecological degradation are the most important ecological environment problems for the Chinese Loess Plateau in recent years, which have seriously hindered the sustainable development of the economy of the Chinese Loess Plateau. Based on the remote sensing image data of the Landsat TM and OLI, the remote sensing ecological index (RSEI) of the tableland protected regions of the Gansu, Shaanxi and Shanxi in the Chinese Loess Plateau were estimated during the period of 2002, 2009 and 2017 in this paper, and the influences of the change of the ecological restoration were also quantitatively evaluated. Besides, the locations of the regions of main ecological degradation were also screened out in this study. The results show that: (1) compared with the results of 2002, the remote sensing ecological index of the Gansu tableland region in 2017 showed a slightly increasing trend (increased by 0.04). Besides, the RSEI of the Shaanxi tableland region in 2017 also showed an obviously increasing trend, and the RSEI increased from 0.45 (in 2002) to 0.56 (in 2017), which indicated that the ecological environment of the Shaanxi tableland region has been improved. The RSEI of the Shanxi tableland region decreased from 0.54 (in 2002) to 0.46 (in 2017), which indicated that the ecological environment of this region has been degraded. (2) Compared the results of 2017 with 2002, the areas of the poor ecological conditions and relatively poor ecological conditions in the Gansu tableland region reduced obviously, while the areas of the good and excellent ecological conditions showed an increasing trend. In the Shaanxi tableland region, the areas of the poor ecological conditions and the relatively poor ecological conditions also demonstrated a decreasing trend, while the areas of the medium ecological conditions and the good ecological conditions increased significantly, the excellent areas presented a fairly stable status. In the Shanxi tableland region, the areas of the poor ecological conditions, the relatively poor ecological conditions and the medium ecological conditions presented increasing trend, while the areas of the good ecological conditions and the excellent ecological conditions showed a decreasing trend. (3) In the Gansu tableland region, the degradation of ecological environment mainly located in the Puhe and the Honghe river basins. In the Shaanxi tableland region, the degradation of ecological environment mainly distributed in the Juhe, Sanshuihe, Ganhe and Qishuihe river basins. In the Shanxi tableland region, the ecological environment degradation areas concentrically located in the Zhouchuanhe and Ehe river basin. (4) Compared the three tableland regions, the ecological conditions in the Gansu tableland regions and the Shaanxi tableland region have been remarkable improved during the period of 2002-2017. Although the ecological conditions in the Shanxi tableland region have declined, the improvement trend of ecological conditions has emerged in this study area. With the continuous implementation of various soil and water conservation and ecological restoration measures, the ecological environment in these three tableland regions of the Chinese Loess Plateau will be effectively improved. The research results of remote sensing ecological security in this paper have a far-reaching significance for the ecological restoration of the tableland regions of the Chinese Loess Plateau, and it is informative for the comprehensive control of regional soil erosion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Soil erosion and ecological degradation are the most important ecological environment problems for the Chinese Loess Plateau in recent years, which have seriously hindered the sustainable development of the economy of the Chinese Loess Plateau. Based on the remote sensing image data of the Landsat TM and OLI, the remote sensing ecological index (RSEI) of the tableland protected regions of the Gansu, Shaanxi and Shanxi in the Chinese Loess Plateau were estimated during the period of 2002, 2009 and 2017 in this paper, and the influences of the change of the ecological restoration were also quantitatively evaluated. Besides, the locations of the regions of main ecological degradation were also screened out in this study. The results show that: (1) compared with the results of 2002, the remote sensing ecological index of the Gansu tableland region in 2017 showed a slightly increasing trend (increased by 0.4). Besides, the RSEI of the Shaanxi tableland region in 2017 also showed an obviously increasing trend, and the RSEI increased from 0.45 (in 2002) to 0.56 (in 2017), which indicated that the ecological environment of the Shaanxi tableland region has been improved. The RSEI of the Shanxi tableland region decreased from 0.54 (in 2002) to 0.46 (in 2017), which indicated that the ecological environment of this region has been degraded. (2) Compared the results of 2017 with 2002, the areas of the poor ecological conditions and relatively poor ecological conditions in the Gansu tableland region reduced obviously, while the areas of the good and excellent ecological conditions showed an increasing trend. In the Shaanxi tableland region, the areas of the poor ecological conditions and the relatively poor ecological conditions also demonstrated a decreasing trend, while the areas of the medium ecological conditions and the good ecological conditions increased significantly, the excellent areas presented a fairly stable status. In the Shanxi tableland region, the areas of the poor ecological conditions, the relatively poor ecological conditions and the medium ecological conditions presented increasing trend, while the areas of the good ecological conditions and the excellent ecological conditions showed a decreasing trend. (3) In the Gansu tableland region, the degradation of ecological environment mainly located in the Puhe and the Honghe river basins. In the Shaanxi tableland region, the degradation of ecological environment mainly distributed in the Juhe, Sanshuihe, Ganhe and Qishuihe river basins. In the Shanxi tableland region, the ecological environment degradation areas concentrically located in the Zhouchuanhe and Ehe river basin. (4) Compared the three tableland regions, the ecological conditions in the Gansu tableland regions and the Shaanxi tableland region have been remarkable improved during the period of 2002-2017. Although the ecological conditions in the Shanxi tableland region have declined, the improvement trend of ecological conditions has emerged in this study area. With the continuous implementation of various soil and water conservation and ecological restoration measures, the ecological environment in these three tableland regions of the Chinese Loess Plateau will be effectively improved. The research results of remote sensing ecological security in this paper have a far-reaching significance for the ecological restoration of the tableland regions of the Chinese Loess Plateau, and it is informative for the comprehensive control of regional soil erosion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In order to understand the current situation of land use layout in the plateau lake basin and explore the optimal allocation of land use space in the plateau lake basin based on urban-agriculture-ecology coordination, the paper takes the Fuxian Lake Basin as an example, based on the 3S technology, and uses the MCR-CLUE-S model to study the structure and layout of town-agriculture-ecological space in 2030 under the four modes of urban construction scenario, cultivated land development scenario, ecological protection scenario and integrated optimization scenario in the Fuxian Lake Basin. Finally, the optimal allocation of land use space under the coordination of town-agriculture-ecological space in Fuxian Lake Basin is proposed. The results show: 1) From 2005 to 2015, in the Fuxian Lake Basin, the urban space is on the rise, the agricultural space is in a downward trend, and the ecological space is rising first and then decreasing. The spatial distribution pattern is basically the same in 10 years. 2) The paper selects important water source, lakeside wetland and large-scale natural forest land as protection sources, 8 resistance factors such as elevation and slope are selected. The minimum cumulative resistance model and the cumulative cost distance model are used to construct the ecological security pattern of the Fuxian Lake Basin, as well as the “source” core area, ecological protection area, ecological margin area, agricultural development area, agricultural fringe area and urban construction area which are conducive to ecological protection. 3) Taking the ecological functional partition area in the ecological security pattern as a constraint, based on the Markov model's calculation of the number of land types, and simulating the town-agriculture-ecological space optimization layout in the urban construction scenario, agricultural development scenario and ecological protection scenario of the Fuxian Lake Basin in 2030 through the CLUE-S model. The urban construction scenario takes into account the current needs of life, and the development of the number and spatial structure of town-agriculture-ecological space led by the development of urban space under the guidance of policies; the agricultural development scenario controls the size of urban space and develops part of the ecological space potential; the area of agricultural space has decreased under the ecological protection scenario, and the urban space area has increased slightly. 4) In the 2030 comprehensive optimization scenario of the Fuxian Lake Basin, seven spatial types are classified according to different land functions: Urban space, agricultural space, ecological space, urban-agricultural space, urban-ecological space, agriculture-ecological space and town-agriculture-ecological space.There are large differences in various types of space: Agriculture - ecological space is minimal, ecological space is maximum. 5) By analyzing the advantages of regional development in four cases and combining with various factors such as cultivated land protection, ecological protection and socioeconomic development in the Fuxian Lake Basin, the study considers that the integrated scenario is more reasonable and more suitable for local development, while the other three single-element scenarios can complement and adjust the implementation of the integrated scenario. The research results provide reference for the decision-making of land space planning and ecological protection strategy in Fuxian Lake Basin. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drainage ditches, which are abundant in the southern river network area, provide drainage services for farmland and are also valuable resources for reducing agricultural pollutants as well as providing habitats for wildlife. It is really a precious natural resource. However, since ditches also occupy part of the land resources, and hindered the mechanization of operations. There is a certain contradiction between mechanical operation and the development of modern agriculture. How to balance various needs in rural ecological construction and protection has become an urgent scientific problem to be solved. Based on a typical case, according to the different emphasis of environmental protection and land increase, this paper analyzed the optimization of ditches/ponds protection while calculating the benefit change in different scenarios, and considered some difficult-to-quantify factors to explore the best transformation mode of the ditches and ponds. The existing ditches/ponds area in this study is 0.82 hm2, accounting for 14.3% of the farmland, of which the proportions of ponds, branch ditches and farms are 28%, 60% and 12%, respectively. The results of economic analysis show that according to the current land lease price, the economic benefits of reducing the area of the ditches/ponds and increasing the land use are higher than those of the ditches and ponds in terms of pollutant removal and ecological pest control. In combination with other factors that are difficult to quantify, this paper recommends that the branch ditches, which are distributed along the edges of the plots and have large area, should be reserved in order to maintain the original drainage and ecological environment functions while ensuring less impact on the field mechanical operations. For densely distributed and small size ditches, it is recommended to use drainage tube instead, which can minimize the impact on the field mechanization operation and reduce the impact on the ecological environment; For those larger and unevenly distributed ponds, considering their small population and limited impact on farmland drainage, can be reclaimed for reclamation on the basis of well-drained drainage facilities. For the study area, the above proposal will reduce the total area of the ponds from 8 020 m2 to 4 818 m2, reduce the area ratio of farmland from 14.3% to 8.6%, and the comprehensive economic benefit ratio can be increased from the current 5 217 to 6 740 RMB; however, the pollutants removal and pest control role will be reduced from the current 5 217 to 3 134 RMB, while the land rental income increases to 3 606 RMB. Therefore, simply from an economic point of view, the benefits of increasing land area should be higher than the economic benefits of reduced pollutant reduction and pest control. If the land proceeds increase in the future, the added value of land area will be more significant. Taking into account some difficult factors such as the provision of habitats and cultural landscape values, the protection and transformation of ditch pond systems in the future will also need to coordinate the demands and efforts of different departments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The natural quality conditions and site conditions of cultivated land jointly determined the sustainable production capacity of cultivated land. The research on the synergistic relationship between natural quality and site conditions could provide theoretical and methodological references for the scientific protection and sustainable use of cultivated land resources. This paper took the cultivated land resources of different geomorphological areas in Liaoning Province as the research objects, which were the hilly area in the west, plain area in the center and mountain area in the east of Liaoning Province. From the perspective of ensuring grain production capacity and sustainable utilization, this paper established natural quality and site condition evaluation system suitable for the characteristics of cultivated land resources in different geomorphological areas. Based on the coupling coordination degree model, this paper quantified the coordination relationship between the natural quality and the site conditions of cultivated land resources, and established synergy system of natural quality and site condition suitable for the characteristics of cultivated land resources in different geomorphic regions based on the LESA (land evaluation and site assessment) system model. In order to verify the scientificity and practicality of the cultivated land synergy system in different geomorphological areas, this paper used Kriging interpolation method to conduct an empirical analysis. Grading the evaluation results according to the natural breakpoint method, and based on the natural quality of farmland and the site property, this paper studied the arable land resources of Liaoning Province and revealed the regularity and difference of farmland resource protection in different landforms. Result shows: The natural quality of cultivated land resources covered the conditions such as soil and topography, and the site conditions of cultivated land resources covered the use condition, regional condition, and ecological and environmental conditions. The order of the natural quality conditions of cultivated land in different landform areas was plain area in the center > hilly area in the west > mountain area in the east. The order of the environmental conditions of cultivated land in different landform areas was hilly area in the west > mountain area in the east > plain area in the center. There were regional differences in the superior characteristics of cultivated land resource protection. The synergistic relationship between the natural quality and the site conditions of cultivated land is 4:6, 6:4 and 5:5, respectively, for the hilly area in the west, plain area in the center and mountain area in the east. According to the proportional coefficient, based on the LESA system, 3 comprehensive evaluation systems for the natural quality and site conditions of cultivated land were constructed conforming to the differences of different landforms. Through the empirical analysis of the collaborative system of natural quality and site environmental conditions of cultivated land in different landforms, the cultivated land of Liaoning was divided into core protection zone, dominant remediation zone and key regulation zone based on the natural quality conditions of the cultivated land, site conditions, and comprehensive quality scores. In the future construction and rectification process, and differentiated management should be implemented. The research results reflect the differences and regularity of the superior characteristics of cultivated land resources in different geomorphological areas, which can provide reference for the sustainable use of cultivated land resources at the provincial scale. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A reasonable cultivated land quality evaluation system reflects the spatial difference of cultivated land quality better and benefits the protection and management of cultivated land. This paper aims to build a more convenient evaluation system of cultivated land quality for acquisition of the quality distribution of cultivated land in provincial level. The system of agricultural land gradation is widely used for evaluation of cultivated land quality in China. But its poor index comparison and shortage of engineering factors are disadvantages for current management of cultivated land resources. Therefore, based on the existing idea and method of agricultural land gradation, this study suggested an improved evaluation system called the hierarchical control method and took Neiqiu County, Hebei Province as a case study. This paper attempted to establish an evaluation system byconsidering cropping system as control factor to characterize the climate effects, land conditions and engineering conditions as the evaluation positive factors, and limiting conditions as the evaluation negative factors. Based on the evaluation system, this paper built three-dimensional Rubik’s cube model for querying results. Then, this paper evaluated the quality of cultivated land in Neiqiu based on the hierarchical control method. The quality of cultivated land in Neiqiu was divided into 5 grades and the areas of Grade 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5 were 9681.30, 11708.28, 6739.46, 2112.59, and 123.55 hm2, respectively, accounting for 31.88%, 38.56%, 22.19%, 6.96%, and 0.41% of the total cultivated land area, respectively. For proving the rationality of the evaluation results of hierarchical control method, this paper compared the results differences between hierarchical control method and factor method onagricultural land quality. The study shows that: 1) Compared with the traditional evaluation system, the system of hierarchical control method has not only the large spatial scale control by cropping system, but also the fine spatial scale evaluation factors. Meanwhile, the considered factors are uniform so it is comparable in provincial scale. Hierarchical setting of evaluation system is convenient to operate. Also, the three-dimensional Rubik’s cube model is easy to inquire the grade of cultivated land quality. 2) Compared to the system of agricultural land gradation, the hierarchical control method considers and highlights the influence of engineering factors (guaranteed rate of irrigation, drainage condition, infrastructure area percentage, and road accessibility) on the quality of cultivated land. Meanwhile, the percentage of cultivated land area at each grade is symmetrical in the matrix form. The grade of cultivated land is mainly distributed on the axis of symmetry. Compared with the factor method, it is found that the trend of the area distribution of cultivated land for the 2 methods is similar in town level, but the area proportion is different. 3) The differences of the influence degree of different factors on the quality of cultivated land need to be further studied. The results can provide some basis for land consolidation, cultivated land requisition-compensation balance, basic farmland protection and other relevant land management work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is a long-term strategy of “storing grain in the ground and storing grain in the technology” for China to carry out rotation and fallow of cultivated land as a system at present. The paper is based on the exploration of the key issues of the spatio-temporal collocation of the cultivated land fallow in China. With the deepening of the pilot work of cultivated land fallow in China, how do we coordinate the spatio-temporal collocation of cultivated land fallow to achieve maximum comprehensive benefits? Following the logical thinking of “experiencing typical national and regional practices, extracting theoretical results, discussing key issues” from the disciplines of geography, agronomy, land science and management, the paper uses the methods of literature, comparison law, induction and field survey, summarizes the practical results of typical countries and regions, and discusses the key problems of the spatio-temporal collocation of cultivated land fallow in China. The following main results are obtained: (1) There are mainly 4 types of spatio-temporal collocation of the cultivated land fallow in typical countries and regions: the aim-oriented spatio-temporal collocation, the execution-oriented spatio-temporal collocation, and the multi-condition-constraint-oriented spatio-temporal collocation, and the technology-oriented spatio-temporal collocation. (2) The connotation essence of the spatio-temporal collocation of cultivated land fallow is to realize the macro-control of “positioning, quantification, and timing” of fallow land, which includes mainly the fallow aim, fallow spatial layout and fallow time arrangement. First, the spatio-temporal collocation is oriented towards fallow aim, and fallow aims at the entire process of spatio-temporal collocation. Second, the fallow spatial layout is to optimize and combine the fallow scale and the fallow area, which are mutually restricted and synchronized. The fallow spatial layout should be considered as national scale and regional scale, including national, provincial, municipal and county scale, and the fallow spatial layout constraints or evaluation index systems at different spatial scales are different. The minimal spatial scale of the fallow scale is county level, while the minimal spatial scale of the fallow area is parcel of land. Third, the fallow time arrangement is regulating and controlling the fallow time series and the fallow time length, which are respectively configured according to the fallow emergency degree and the expected benefits in this area. The fallow time series can be divided into short term, medium term and long term, and the fallow time length can be divided into season break, annual rest and rest of many years. In addition, the spatio-temporal collocation of cultivated land fallow is also controlled by the national conditions and the land system in China, and is shown in the fallow aim or the fallow constraints. (3) The spatio-temporal collocation process of cultivated land fallow is “fallow aim, constraint, spatial layout, time arrangement”, and each link is connected with each other. The constraints mainly include grain market, food security, ecological security, cultivated land quality and social economy, and can be transformed with the fallow aim. The fallow spatial layout and fallow time arrangement are subject to constraints, and using different spatial-scale forecasting models or evaluation index systems, and making full use of “3S” (remote sensing, global position system, and geographic information system), monitoring, and surveying and mapping are the technical foundations for rational collocation. (4) The key issues that need to be solved in the spatio-temporal collocation of cultivated land fallow in China are as follows: The first issue is the spatial layout of cultivated land fallow at different spatial scales. Grain security is the primary constraint condition at the national scale, and the geographical spatial difference between grain supply and demand, the quality and ecological condition of cultivated land and the level of regional social economy is the comprehensive constraint condition at regional scale. The second issue is the fallow time arrangement of cultivated land in different regions. According to the urgency level and the expected benefits of the regional fallow, the time series and the multiple fallow lengths of the cultivated land fallow are determined respectively. In fact, the improvement of the cultivated land fallow system in any country is the result of continuous attempts among academics, policymakers and farmers. At present, the pilot work of the cultivated land fallow in China has been explored for more than 2 years, and many problems encountered in the pilot process are still to be thought out in order to improve the timeliness of the spatio-temporal collocation of the cultivated land fallow. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to investigate the spatial distribution, temporal change and policy proposal of the cultivated land pressure in China. Considering the relationship between the quantity of cultivated land and population, the model of cultivated land pressure index put forward by Professor Cai Yunlong, can quantitatively measure the tension of cultivated land resources in a region. But the difference of cultivated land quality and utilization in different regions was not considered in this model. Therefore, this paper adopted the quality coefficient to expand the cultivated land pressure index, which can reflect both the quantity and quality of cultivated land. Moreover, most of the existing relating studies focused on shorter time series or smaller research fields, few studies have been conducted with long time series data like the years of 1978-2015 in this paper, and little research about spatial-temporal change of cultivated land pressure has been done at different scales across the whole China. So, this paper used the modified model to calculate the cultivated land pressure index at different levels i.e. the whole country, 4 major economic regions and 31 provincial administrative regions from 1978 to 2015. And based on the above-mentioned research data, by using the methods of comparative analysis, clustering analysis and barycenter analysis, this paper analyzed the temporal changes and spatial distribution differences of cultivated land pressure index at the 3 spatial scales and put forward some proposals for cultivated land protection. The study showed that: 1) The changing trend of the cultivated land pressure index in China can be approximately divided into 4 stages: fluctuant declining period from 1978 to 1984, relatively stable period from 1985 to 1997, rapidly rising period from 1998 to 2003 and rapidly declining period from 2004 to 2015. 2) The regional difference of cultivated land pressure is very obvious. In more detail, the cultivated land pressure in the eastern region of China increases gradually, and in the western region of China, the cultivated land pressure is always high, while it is basically stable at a safe state in the middle and northeastern regions of China. 3) The barycenter of cultivated land pressure in China gradually moves to the southeast over time. 4) Thirty-one provincial administrative regions can be divided into 4 types by using the hierarchical clustering method, namely high-pressure type, medium-pressure type, low-pressure type and non-pressure type. 5) Finally, aiming at different types or degrees of cultivated land pressure, suitable countermeasures should be taken to alleviate the cultivated land pressure effectively so as to guarantee the grain supply in all regions of China, such as purchasing the indicators of cultivated land compensation in other provinces or controlling the population inflow moderately for economically developed provinces of high pressure, carrying out land consolidation and rehabilitation actively or increasing agricultural investment for ecologically fragile provinces of high or medium pressure, improving farmland infrastructure or transporting grain to the food shortage areas or offering the indicators of cultivated land compensation to other provinces with insufficient cultivated land reserve resources for low-pressure or non-pressure provinces located in major grain producing areas, and so on. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Soil microorganisms participate in the energy flow and nutrient cycle of soil ecosystem, affecting the geochemical cycle process of organisms. Their diversity and community compositions play an important role in determining the function and sustainability of soil ecosystem. The functional diversity of soil microbial community is one of the important indexes to express the soil microbial community and ecological function. Soil microbial diversities of black farmland under different land use types are of great significance to the rational utilization and protection of soil resources. This paper explored the diversity of black soil microorganisms under different land use patterns of farmland, including maize, rice, soybean and potato, and taking the wasteland as the control. The Biolog Eco microplate method and pure culture of bacteria were used to study the changes of soil microbial diversity under four different land use patterns in the black soil area of central and southwest Heilongjiang province. The results showed that: 1) The number of culturable bacteria from more to less were potato, rice, soybean, maize, wasteland, but the variation of Shannon-Wiener diversity index from high to low was: wasteland (2.18), maize (2.11), potato (2.00), rice (1.73), soybean (1.49). 2) The utilization degree of carbon source of microorganisms in black soil under different utilization patterns increased with the extension of culture time. We found that amino acids, carbohydrates and polymers were main carbon sources for the metabolism of microorganisms in black soil. The Shannon-wiener index (3.18), McIntosh index (5.96), richness index (24.89) and Simpson index (0.95) of maize soil microorganisms were higher than those of other land use patterns, among which the diversity index of rice soil microorganisms was the smallest. There was no significant difference between the diversity index of potato, soybean and wasteland. Maize was better suited to the soil environment of farmland in the black soil area of Heilongjiang Province. 3) Principal component analysis identified two principal component factors that were related to carbon sources and explained 54.43% and 7.95% of the variance, respectively. Principal component analysis showed that different land use patterns significantly affects the metabolic diversity of carbon sources in the soil microbial community, and the main types of carbon sources that differentiated the metabolic characteristics of the soil microbial community were carbohydrates, amino acids and carboxylic acids, among which carbohydrates were particularly prominent. It showed that different land use patterns can affect the functional diversity of soil microorganisms. The results of this study is helpful to understand the relationship between soil microbial diversity and land use patterns of farmland in black soil area and provides certain scientific basis for agricultural development and scientific and rational utilization of black soil resources. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As land is an important livelihood resource for rural households, land transfer means that rural households intend to break inherent livelihood pattern and seek alternative livelihoods through the integration of livelihood capital to ensure their livelihood security. In this paper, we aimed to determine the livelihood capital integration characteristics of rural household, including its direction, intensity and benefit. Taking three villages of Shuangkui Town, Hechuan District, Chongqing City, China as a case study, 267 questionnaires of rural household renting their farmland were collected prior to land transfer in 2013 and after land transfer in 2017, respectively. In this paper, firstly, according to the employed industry and its change, rural households were divided into five categories:stable pure households, non-agricultural pure households, stable part-time households, non-agricultural part-time households and stable off-farm households. Secondly, based on the livelihood capital system that included six subsystems: human capital, physical capital, productive capital, living capital, financial capital and social capital, the difference of livelihood capital among different types of households was analyzed. Finally, the radar chart, livelihood capital disturbance index and growth index were applied respectively to evaluate the integration direction, intensity and benefit of households’ livelihood capital before and after the land transfer. The results indicated thatthe livelihood capital totality of stable off-farm households, non-agricultural part-time households, stable part-time households, non-agricultural pure households and stable pure households were 3.248, 3.142, 2.967, 2.460 and 2.274, respectively, in 2013. Besides, non-agricultural pure households and non-agricultural part-time households had more human capital, living capital, financial capital and social capital, while stable pure households and stable part-time households dominated in physical capital and productive capital before land transfer. It was apparent that the livelihood condition is the basis of livelihood transformation of rural households. The results also showed thatthe human capital, living capital, financial capital and social capital of non-agricultural pure households and non-agricultural part-time households increased, while the physical capital of stable pure households and stable part-time households rose. Therefore, for livelihood capital intensity direction, non-agricultural pure households and non-agricultural part-time households were inclined to the integration of human capital, financial capital and social capital, while stable pure households and stable part-time households focused mainly on the integration of productive capital. But, there was no obvious difference in the intensity direction of livelihood capital for stable off-farm households. In addition, livelihood capital disturbance index from large to small were non-agricultural pure households (0.169), non-agricultural part-time households (0.144), stable pure households (0.124), stable part-time households (0.105) and stable off-farm households (0.098). It showed that livelihood capital integration intensity of non-agricultural households was higher than that of stable style households. Moreover,livelihood capital growth index from large to small were non-agricultural part-time households (0.135), non-agricultural pure households (0.120), stable part-time households (0.094), stable off-farm households (0.093) and stable pure households (0.088), respectively. Thus, it could be seen that livelihood capital integration benefit of non-agricultural households was also higher than that of stable style households. From this research, we concluded that path inertia law existed in the livelihood capital integration process of rural households. That was, certain livelihood capital pattern was able to trigger off particular livelihood strategy which solidified the corresponding livelihood capital pattern, which was positive for non-agricultural part-time households and non-agricultural pure households but not for stable part-time households and stable pure households. The results would provide references for the establishment of policies on accelerating land transfer to ensure livelihood sustainability of households. Besides, the interactive mechanism between farmer’s livelihood capital integration and land transfer would be better understood. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The spatial layout optimization of rural settlements is the main content of new rural construction, and also one of the key contents of the overall land use planning. The rational spatial layout optimization of rural settlements can not only promote the intensive use of land resources and improve rural production and living environment, but also accelerate the transfer of rural labor force and further narrow the gap between urban and rural development. In order to determine the type of spatial layout optimization of rural settlements scientifically and guide the optimization of spatial distribution of rural settlements and the practice of new rural construction effectively, this paper put forward a spatial distribution optimization method of rural residential areas based on town planning regulation, which was applied to Kekeyiligeng Town in Wuchuan County, Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region. Under the regulation of land use planning at town level, the following steps were in process: First of all, the rural residential areas were divided into 2 different evolution directions based on the location within or outside the boundaries of urban construction land expansion: urbanization and non-urbanization. Specifically, the rural residential areas located within the boundaries of urban construction land extension were identified as urbanization type; conversely the rural residential areas outside the extended boundary range were defined as non-urbanization type. Secondly, the spatial layout optimization type of the urbanization type residential areas was determined as the community-based management mode due to that the rural residential areas as urbanization type were likely to be included in urban construction in their future development. Thirdly, for non-urbanization rural settlements, the evaluation index system for the comprehensive influence of rural residential patches was constructed from 3 aspects: the coordination of town planning, the convenience of production and living, and the activeness of residential areas. Based on comprehensive evaluation scores, the spatial layout optimization types of non-urbanization type were accordingly divided into 3 categories: comprehensive development, in-situ renovation, and combined migration. Finally, the rural settlements optimal layout scheme with 4 optimization types was formulated. The results showed that there were 6 rural residential areas identified as community-based management areas in the study area, with an area of 15.29 hm2, accounting for 2.92% of the total area of the town; 46 comprehensive development areas, with an area of 178.28 hm2, accounting for 35.04% of the non-urbanized rual residential area; 53 in-situ renovation areas, with an area of 189.20 hm2, accounting for 37.20%; 40 combined migration areas, with an area of 141.22 hm2, accounting for 27.76%; the paper also put forward a more specific optimization plan for the 4 optimization types of rural residential spatial layout. Under the framework of town planning regulation, and given full consideration to the space-time arrangement of the rural settlements layout optimization in the town planning period, the optimal layout scheme obtained by the method constructed in this paper is more accordant with practical circumstances in China, and the spatial distribution optimization method of rural residential areas based on town planning regulation can provide a new idea for spatial optimization and renovation of rural residential areas and also provide reference for related research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For the factors affecting cultivated land quality vary with regions, classifying of land consolidation regions is the groundwork for farmland consolidation, which has great significance to improve the pertinence and effectiveness of the consolidation project. However, there exists some problems with the classification of large sample with multidimensional variable space, such as the classifying parameters being difficult to give and the result lacking visualization. In this paper, a new method called the graphical method of density diagram was put forward based on principal component analysis to improve the objectivity, visibility and interpretation of the classification. The processes were as follows: At the first, the method of principal component analysis was used to get the principal components from multiple factors, and then the values of first principal component (F1) and the second one (F2) of all the samples of Xinzheng City, Henan Province were calculated. Secondly, land consolidation regions were classified using cluster analysis method by making a scatter diagram of the samples in a two-dimensional plane of F1-F2 to create a scatter density figure. Finally, the types of land consolidation regions were subdivided by the method of parsing with the qualitative factors, such as landform type and soil texture. The study was performed in Xinzheng City, and the results showed that: 1) F1 and F2 contained 85.55% of the total information of the original factors including organic matter, total nitrogen, available phosphorus, available potassium of soil and irrigation rate, which could take the place of all of the original factors to classify land consolidation regions. 2) In the scatter density diagram of F1-F2, the obvious cluster feature was presented, by which different types of land consolidation regions could be classified effectively and objectively, and the types had clear connotations for F1 and F2 were well correlated with grain yield. 3) By cluster and analysis, the 315 administrative villages in Xinzheng City were divided into 6 types of land consolidation regions: the comprehensive factors limiting region, the available phosphorus-irrigation rate limiting region, and the available potassium and organic matter-irrigation rate limiting region with low grain yields; the potassium and organic matter-irrigation rate limiting region with medium grain yields; irrigation rate limiting region, and the unlimited region with a medium-high grain yield. The grain yield and factors features of the different types differed from each other. The conclusion can be given that the classification method put forward in this paper is suitable for farmland consolidation partition of large sample with multidimensional variable space, and the classification can be used in farmland consolidation in Xinzheng City. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Wetland plays an important role in the diversity maintenance of species, supplements of groundwater, regulation of climate, purification and degradation of pollutants, and so on. In recent years, due to the irrational exploitation and utilization of wetland, wetland resources have been gradually dried up, and how to develop and utilize wetlands has become an important issue. Classification of wetland has also become a hot topic for scholars both at home and abroad. Because of the special geographical position, it is difficult to obtain and monitor wetland by traditional surveying techniques. Therefore, remote sensing has been applied broadly in the classification of wetland. But most researches mainly focus on classification of the natural wetlands, classification of wetland in mining subsidence area, a kind of artificial wetland, is rarely involved. Therefore, this paper discussed classification of wetland in mining subsidence area using GF-1 remote sensing images and object-oriented method with Yanzhou coal field as an example．In order to improve the accuracy of classification, segmentation and classification were based on vector data. The vectors of river wetlands and landscape wetlands (Area 1) were obtained through the map of present land use, and the vectors of other areas (Area 2) were obtained by the erasure of the study area with river wetland and landscape wetland (Area 1). Images of river wetland and landscape wetland were treated with chessboard segmentation based on the vector of Area 1 and the nearest neighbour method was used for classification. Ratio of length to width was selected as the image feature and the threshold value was set to differentiate the 2 types of wetlands. Images of aquaculture wetland, vegetation type wetland, non-reclaimed perennially waterlogged wetlands and non-reclaimed seasonal water-accumulation wetland were processed with multi-scale segmentation based on the vector of Area 2. The relative optimal segmentation parameters were obtained by repeated tests. The main parameters for segmentation were segmentation scale and weights of heterogeneity factors. The segmentation scale determined for vegetation type wetland was 180, the weight of the shape factor was 0.2, and the weight of degree of compact was 0.1. Segmentation scale of non-reclaimed perennially waterlogged wetland was 250, the weight of the shape factor was 0.6, and the weight of degree of compact was 0.7. For non-reclaimed seasonal water-accumulation wetland and aquaculture wetland, the 3 parameters were 170, 0.2, 0.1 and 230, 0.7, 0.9 respectively. Local optimal segmentation parameters were further determined through comparison and analysis of segmentation parameters in several typical regions. After analyzing the segmentation parameters corresponding to different types of wetlands, 3 classification levels were established. The non-reclaimed perennially waterlogged wetland was deemed as L1 layer, and the aquaculture wetland was L2 layer. The vegetation type wetland and the non-reclaimed seasonal water-accumulation wetland with similar segmentation parameters were at the same classification level as the L3 layer. Bottom-up rules were used for classification, which meant it started from the L3 layer with a small segmentation scale, then L2 layer, and finally the L1 layer with the largest segmentation scale. The image features selected for aquaculture wetland were the normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI), the ratio of length to width, and area, those for non-reclaimed perennially waterlogged wetland were NDVI and area, those for vegetation type wetland were the mean of gray level co-occurrence matrix (GLCM mean), the mean of near infrared band and NDVI, and those for non-reclaimed seasonal water-accumulation wetland were spectral brightness and GLCM mean. The classification rules were established according to the particularly selected image features. The fuzzy classification method was adopted to classify the wetland in Area 2. Accuracy evaluation was carried out by field survey and confusion matrix. There were 141 sample spots selected to verify the results. It indicated that the classification accuracy of river wetland and landscape wetland was 100%, total accuracy was 96.95%, and Kappa index was 0.958 4. Therefore, the classification method put forward in this paper is suitable for classification of wetland in mining subsidence area. The study provides a reference for other similar areas, and provides a scientific basis for reclamation, planning and management of wetland in coal mining subsidence area. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Automatic classification of high-resolution remote sensing image has been a hot topic in remote sensing image analysis and related areas. Object-oriented image analysis method exploits segmentation object as the basic unit of analysis, avoiding the “salt and pepper” phenomenon in the traditional classification method. However, the major limitation is the uncertainty of segmenting semantically meaningful object as the basic unit of analysis. The traditional classifiers to discriminate objects in the underlying feature spaces cannot adapt to the complexity of different features with different imaging mechanisms, leading to large differences within classes and the imbalance between different classes. Probabilistic topic model shows a great success in the field of natural language processing with solid mathematical theoretical foundation. Its inherent characteristics are extremely consistent with the demand of remote sensing information extraction. In this paper, the classic probabilistic topic model, latent dirichlet allocation (LDA) model, is used as the main model. LDA model is introduced into high-resolution remote sensing image classification research. Bag-of-words model can produce a valid information expression of remote sensing images, but the studies regarding this model are still limited in low-level features which mean the word vector space. The proposed LDA model in this paper would be applicable to the further exploitation of remote sensing data. This paper was going to establish some sort of spatial model oriented to the classification of high-resolution remote sensing images, and meanwhile the improved model was based on the traditional LDA model. The expression of remote sensing images based on the bag-of-words model is a basic of probabilistic topic model. Considering the requires of patterns classification, we were going to create the “Document-Words” mapping of high-resolution remote sensing images by using multi-scale segmentation algorithm and study on the key technology of building the bag-of-words model. It created the visual dictionary with a fast clustering algorithm based on the density peak to get rid of the dependence of original clustering center and identify the noise. After building the bag-of-words model, we tried to introduce the popularity and content of spatial topic as the latent topic of data and the prior distribution of words in the topic. Moreover, the variational expectation maximization (EM) inference algorithm of this model was built and the tests would verify the advantage of improved model. QuickBird images of Wuxi were used in the experiment, whose spatial resolution was 0.6 m with 4 bands. LDA and Space-LDA model were compared in the classification of land use types. Space-LDA model had higher classification accuracy than traditional LDA, and reached the highest accuracy when the visual dictionary size was 480. At last, when topic size was fixed at 40, both overall classification accuracy and Kappa’s coefficient showed that Space-LDA model achieved better results than LDA model. The spatial region information provides reasoning information from both the theme popularity and the thematic content at the same time, so the model has a more flexible structure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Different land use types are mixed with each other inside the rural settlements. They are in spontaneous, loose and chaotic development situations. It is common condition for extensive and inefficient land use. Through the research of internal function structure of rural settlements, we can identify the existing problems to provide guidance for the quantitative and spatial arrangement of different land use types, thus enhancing land use efficiency to achieve the optimal goal. The paper established the land use internal structure classification system of rural settlements from the perspective of function. We tried to master the internal land use structure of rural settlements in a microcosmic perspective. Following the principles to show the rural land characteristics, so as to provide guidance for land management and reflect social-economic development, we divided the internal land use structure into production function land, living function land, ecological function land and potential function land. Production function land was divided according to industrial types. Living function land was divided according to residents' demand. Ecological function land was divided according to ecological service types. Potential function land was divided according to the consolidation costs. Eventually, the land use classification system consisted of 4 classes, 10 secondary classes and 37 tertiary classes. It could satisfy the research needs of small scale and high precision. Based on the established classification system, we investigated the rural settlement of Daxingzhuang Village, Pinggu district, Beijing City through field survey and participatory evaluation method, acquiring its internal land use structure. After the comparative analysis between land use functional structure classification of rural settlement and current land use classification (GB/T 21010-2007), we found that there is a significant differentiation between the 2 classification systems: 14 land use types in current land use classification and 28 land use types in land use functional structure classification of rural settlement. Land use functional structure classification of rural settlement in this paper refined the current land use classification. It put more focus on the actual land use condition, and weakened the ownership property of internal land use types, such as urban land, rural settlement land and independent industrial and mining land. This classification system has achieved the purpose of accurately characterizing rural settlement land with fewer land use types, and highlighting the dominant functions of various land use types. The comparison results showed that living function land accounted for a relatively stable proportion and formed the basic structure of rural settlements. However, the sub-classification of housing land, such as the idle housing land, could provide foundation for internal land use potential development, which could promote the improvement of rural settlement land use efficiency and the land use standard measurement. Besides, land use functional structure classification of rural settlement could also calculate the multi functions of rural settlements. The production function land in Daxingzhuang Village accounted for 34.73%, the living function land 53.53%, the ecological function land 4.06%, and the potential function land 7.68%. It could not only satisfy the demands of peasant, but also propel the rural settlement land consolidation, thereby promoting the internal land use investigation, planning and management, and the coordinated development between urban and rural areas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Remote sensing image classification is the main approach for rapidly obtaining regional land use/cover information and it has always been an important part in the field of remote sensing. How to improve the classification accuracy of remote sensing images is an urgent problem to be solved in remote sensing research. In traditional classification, only the spectral features of remote sensing image are used, while the texture and other features are ignored. Therefore, it is very common to see the object confusion in the classification result. In this paper, we took the Shijiazhuang Landsat 8 OLI remote sensing image data as the research area, and systematically studied object-oriented classification based on the spatial texture features of remote sensing images. Firstly, Gray Level Co-occurrence Matrix (GLCM) texture features and Gist texture features based on Gabor filter were compared and analyzed. The average J-M distance method was used to evaluate the sample separability and to choose optimal texture features of GLCM. Subsequently, the optimum index factor (OIF) was applied to obtain the best combination of the two texture features. Secondly, the segmentation scale of object-oriented classification was studied in detail, meanwhile, the concept of “the optimal overall segmentation scale” was proposed, which was based on the ratio between maximum area and the number of the objects in classification result. Finally, two object-oriented classification methods, K-Nearest Neighbor (KNN) method and Support Vector Machine (SVM) method, were used to classify the texture data and the original data, and the accuracy of assessment results were compared using three traditional supervised classification methods. The results indicated that the fusion of texture features could improve the accuracy of classification to some extent. The overall classification accuracy based on texture data using object-oriented SVM and object-oriented KNN increased by 3.67 and 3.33 percentage points, respectively, compared with the results based on original data. Object-oriented SVM method based on texture data had the highest classification accuracy with overall classification accuracy of 85.67%, and with Kappa index of 0.81. Although the classification accuracy of the texture-based supervised classification was improved compared with the supervised classification based on original data, the accuracy was far lower than the value with object-oriented method. For original data, the overall classification accuracy of object-oriented KNN increased by 4.33%, 3.99% and 2.00%, respectively, compared with Maximum Likelihood Classification (MLC), Mahalanobis Distance Classification (MDC) and SVM method. The overall classification accuracy of object-oriented SVM increased by 8.33%, 7.99% and 6.00%, respectively, compared with three supervised methods. After fusing Gist texture features, the overall classification accuracy of object-oriented KNN had increased by 6.33%, 4.66% and 2.66% respectively compared with MLC, MDC and SVM. Whereas the overall classification accuracy of object-oriented SVM increased by 10.67%, 9% and 7.00%, respectively, compared with three supervised methods. Object-oriented SVM method is more sensitive to texture features with the maximum increase of classification accuracy. In future study, more texture features need to be considered to extend the application range of remote sensing classification. In summary, the texture feature has positive effect on improving the accuracy of remote sensing classification, and the application of Gist textures have great potential in object-oriented classification. Moreover, it can also be found that object-oriented method is suitable for classifying medium resolution remote sensing image. The research method in this paper not only gives a valuable reference for other kinds of remote sensing images, but also provides an effective approach for the extraction of regional land use/cover information. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The redevelopment of abandoned coal mine industry square (ACMIS) has become an important issue, as the number of abandoned sites has been increasing. Meanwhile, redeveloping the ACMIS is the basic requirement of the Chinese urban renovation and restoration strategy. Since reusing ACMIS is time-consuming and cost-consuming, developing an assessment tool to prioritize the renewal processes is necessary. Many existing assessment tools are not appropriate because they mainly focus on ecological aspects, while neglecting urban planning issues. Thus, this paper proposes a driving force-state-response (DSR) model of ACMIS which integrates planning, land rehabilitation and ecology, and analyzes the factors influencing the DSR framework. Then, the paper creates a comprehensive assessment system for prioritizing the redevelopment of ACMIS, which includes stakeholders' requalification objectives and perspectives related to the ACMIS regeneration process. The assessment system takes into account 3 pillars, which are 6 driving force factors (agglomeration degree of ecological agriculture, agglomeration degree of culture-oriented travel, high-way status, public transportation status, distance from downtown, accessibility of public service facilities), 9 state factors (soil conditions, soil pH value, damage degree, degree of heavy metal pollution, risk degree of geologic hazard, architectural integrity, historic and cultural value of modern architectures, status of underground space, municipal infrastructure status), and response (planning and policy). The point scoring framework is used to quantify and classify indicators, while four-quadrant method is used to couple evaluation results. Based on the evaluation results, ACMIS has been divided into 4 classes, high driving force - high state (HDFHS), high driving force - low state (HDFLS), low driving force - high state (LDFHS) and low driving force - low state (LDFLS). According to the land use planning, the development sequence is divided into 3 stages: The first development sequence is composed of HDFHS, the second development sequence is composed of HDFLS and LDFHS, and the third one is composed of LDFLS. The method has been applied to the Jingxi coal mine case study (Beijing, China), and the result showed that 3 sites named Changgouyu (D=3.818, S=3.848; D is driving force and S is state), Datai (D=3.732, S=3.732) and Muchengjian (D=2.646, S=4.522) in the city inventory were included in the first redevelopment sequence, and Wangping (D=4.240, S=3.187), Qianjuntai (D=2.248, S=3.887) and Daanshan (D=1.792, S=4.39) in the second redevelopment sequence, while Anjiatan (D=2.118, S=1.464) and Huapogen (D=2.798, S=1.907) in the third redevelopment sequence. It reveals that an adapted and structured assessment approach truly contributes to integrating urban planning into ACMIS regeneration. The resulting assessment should be a valuable aid to cities and governments as they plan their ACMIS regeneration projects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Xiong'an New Area was set up on April 1, 2017 and became a hot spot for scholars. This research aimed to distinguish the spatial distribution characteristics of cultivated land quality gradation in the Xiong'an New Area, to provide the scientific basis for construction land selection. This paper discussed the spatial distribution characteristics of cultivated land quality gradation, and analyzed the characteristics and average grade of cultivated land quality at different spatial scales, as well as the spatial agglomeration characteristics of cultivated land quality gradation, on the basis of cultivated land quality gradation complement results and land use change database, using spatial statistical analysis of ArcGIS, area-weighted average method, mean dichotomy method, and partial autocorrelation method, and as a basis for the zoning of cultivated land occupied by construction land. The agricultural acreage of Xiong'an New Area was 88 894.63 hm2. This research showed that the quality of cultivated land in the New Area was distributed from Grade 6 to Grade 14, and the average grade was 9.42, slightly higher than that in Hebei Province. Deviation value of cultivated land was from -3.42 to 4.58, with the lower dispersion in north and east part and higher dispersion in central and south part of the New Area. Cultivated land quality showed the high positive correlation in spatial distribution, LL type (Higher aggregation type) was distributed in the northeast and southwest, and HH type (lower aggregation type) was distributed in the northwestern, eastern and southern parts of the region. There was no obvious concentration area of HL and LH type (negative correlation type). Based on the results of local spatial autocorrelation, the occupancy rule of arable land by construction land was made, and the priority occupancy area, reserved occupancy area, maintained area of cultivated land, and river system regulation and control area were delimited, which were the recommended cultivated land occupied by construction land. The quality grade of cultivated land in the priority occupancy area was from 10 to 14, with the area of 40 981.03 hm2, occupying 26.4% of the total area, mainly distributed in the northern part of the New Area, closer to Rongcheng and Xiongzhou Town. The quality grade of cultivated land in the reserved occupancy area was from 9 to 11, with the area of 57 304.07 hm2, occupying 36.92% of the total area. The quality of cultivated land in the maintained area of cultivated land was from 6 to 9, with an area of 39 008.29 hm2, occupying 25.13% of the whole area, mainly distributed in the northeast and south of the New Area. The river system regulation and control areas were mainly distributed around the Baiyang Lake, occupying 11.55% of the total area. Through the rationality analysis, the recommended partition result is considered to be credible. Based on these results, the paper suggests that the low grade cultivated land should be occupied in priority, and the high grade cultivated land should be protected. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The evaluation of land damage degree is an important basis for the formulation of land reclamation plan and the establishment of compensation standard for farmers in coal mining subsidence area. Mining subsidence area with high groundwater level has the characteristics of flat terrain, lower phreatic water depth, more recoverable coal seams, large thickness and big surface subsidence coefficient which lead to severe surface subsidence and seeper. Land is seriously destroyed. Thus, this paper takes Dongtan coal mine as an example to evaluate land damage degree of subsidence area with high groundwater level that will be damaged by coal mining from 2014 to 2018. The underground water level more easily rises above the surface elevation after mining, which leads to surface seeper in coal mining area with high groundwater level and when the perennial seeper is formed, there will be total crop failure for farmland. In Dongtan coal mine, the maximum buried depth of groundwater is 4 m. When the surface subsidence depth is more than 4 m, there will be perennial seeper, and therefore, the area with sinking depth of more than 4 m is designated as severely damaged area by the limit condition method. Based on a systematic review of existing research, the evaluation index system of other areas with sinking depth of no more than 4 m is constructed and evaluation units are divided with proper method. The weights of the indices are determined by the method of relationship of the order based on centralized decision-making of fuzzy opinions. Damage degrees are evaluated by the extension method. The final evaluation results show that the total damaged area of land is 1 675 hm2, of which the slightly damaged area is 968.2 hm2, the moderately damaged area is 379.53 hm2, and the severely damaged area is 327.27 hm2. The comparison with the simple empirical method of determining damage degree by means of surface seeper shows that the empirical method often underestimates the level of land damage in the mining area with high groundwater level. Areas where differences occur are concentrated in the middle and lower slopes of subsidence basins. Tilt deformation causes the slope of the land to become larger, and increases soil erosion; the area is under tensile force, and soil compaction is reduced, which is not conducive to the growth of crops, so the region near middle slopes can also be moderately damaged area. For the subsidence basin in downhill region, squeezed effect improves the land compaction, which is not conducive to the absorption of water and fertilizer for crops, and the area is prone to salinization and swamping, which is not conducive to the growth of crops. Although there is no perennial water area, the extent of the damage can be severe. Therefore, when determining damage degree of the land in coal mining subsidence area with high groundwater level, the condition of surface seeper should not be deemed as the only standard. The method proposed in this paper provides a reference for this type of subsidence area: The perennial water area is designated as severe damage area by the limit condition method, and comprehensive evaluation index system should be constructed to evaluate damage degree of land in other areas. The study provides theoretical support for the development of land reclamation plan and the establishment of compensation standards of farmers in Dongtan coal mine, and provides a reference for the evaluation of land damage degree in the same type of coal mining subsidence areas with high groundwater level [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In order to ensure the successful smooth implementation of cultivated land fallow project and long-term preservation of its effectiveness, China has been developing reasonable subsidy policy of cultivated land fallow in recent years. Excessive agricultural intensification and chemical agricultural production has caused a series of problems in China, such as soil productivity deterioration pressure, soil pollution, soil degradation etc.. These problems restrict the farmland sustainable use and agricultural sustainable development. At the same time, the overall supply of China's grain is relatively abundant, and there is a phenomenon of price inversion in the international grain market. Farmland fallow refers to the measures taken by land owners or users to replace crops or not to farm in a certain period for the purpose of improving farming efficiency and promote sustainable use of land. It is important to select some area as a pilot area in China, and implement cultivated land fallow project, because this not only can maintain the sustainable development, the restoration of soil fertility, and improve the quality of cultivated land, but also can balance the grain supply and demand contradiction to ensure food security and stable income of farmers. In this article, we selected the United States, Japan, the European Union, China Taiwan and other countries and regions as the study areas. It is mainly because these areas have many years of experience in fallow practice, and have developed the policy of subsidy to the farmers. The agricultural development in the United States and the European Union have a large scale farm, which is characterized by large scale of operation, high degree of mechanization and professional farmers. But the characteristics of farm in Japan and China are small both in size and economic scale, which is known for low mechanization, high specialization of agricultural management, and scattered farmers. In this paper, we reviewed the literature and used comparative analysis and induction to analyze the practice of fallow subsidy in these countries and regions, then summarized the purpose of the fallow subsidy, the model of implementation, the form of subsidies (the basis of subsidy and the fund of subsidy). In addition, China has practiced a pilot project in fallow of cultivating arable land for one year. During that time, there are a few areas in fallowing, they are mainly in the areas of groundwater funnel, heavy metal pollution, serious ecological degradation, continuous cropping and other ecological environment. Overall, the cultivated land fallow system pilot area has achieved good results, food production capacity has improved, ecological environment has also been improved. However, since the fallow system in China is only in the exploratory stage, the implementation of the fallow subsidy policy may also have many potential problems, including the insufficient motivation of compensation subject, the lack of flexibility in the subsidy standard, the single source of subsidy funds and the weakness of subsidy systems. Finally, in view of these problems in the subsidy policy of cultivated land fallow in China, in this paper, we put forward some suggestions on how to improve the subsidy policy in the future, those include developing dynamic goals, maximizing the subsidy benefit, making different types of subsidy, and diversifying the source of funds. According to the principle of differentiation and diversification, we also attempted to construct the conceived framework of China's fallow subsidy policy in order to provide reference for the establishment of the subsidy policy framework of cultivated land fallowing in China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this research was to explore the layout method of the quality monitoring points of cultivated land, and to solve the unreasonable problem of monitoring point space layout. In this paper, the data source of the research was from the results of farmland productivity survey and quality evaluation. The SPSS software was used to establish a histogram of the number of indicators, and whether the data were continuous and were in a normal distribution was intuitively evaluated. The continuous sample data were used to determine the level and hierarchy of the monitored control area by the variation coefficient method, and according to the error theory, combined with the area control principle, the total number of monitoring points was determined and allocated into different zones according to the monitoring control zone area. For discontinuous data, if it was determined that the variation coefficient method in the monitoring control area would result in an invalid monitoring control zone level, in order to avoid this situation, visual discretization method was used to determine the level of monitoring control. The area of concentration of the target concentration was used as the monitoring control area; the data of the monitoring points after interpolation were continuous, therefore, the intermediate value was used as the endpoint value of the interval of monitoring control zone. The compound control area based on the monitoring index was divided by the space interpolation method of Kriging. The locations of the quality monitoring points of cultivated land were based on the spatial form of the control area of the compound monitoring index. The sampling theory was used to carry out a representative analysis of the monitoring points. 1) The research puts forward farmland quality monitoring point layout method based on compound control zone of monitoring index. Compared with other methods, the method takes full account of the lower relationship of the monitoring points; with specific indicators as a logical starting point, a composite control area was formed based on monitoring indicators; the degrees of homogenization and heterogeneity of the monitoring points were consistent with the monitoring indicators, which ensured that the space layout of the monitoring points was reasonable and avoided the disadvantage of redundancy for the monitoring point positions and the corresponding monitoring indices at monitoring point positions. 2) This paper takes Keshan County as an example to apply the method of monitoring point. The original program needs 11 monitoring indicators including organic matter, barrier layer thickness, plough thickness, total nitrogen, available phosphorus, available potassium, soil bulk density, slope, surface rock outcrop, soil pH value, and irrigation guarantee rate, as well as a total of 200 monitoring points and 2 200 tests, in which 110 kg soil sample and the cost of 440 000 yuan will be consumed. But after the optimization with this method, only 7 monitoring indicators are needed, including organic matter, total nitrogen, available phosphorus, available potassium, plough thickness, barrier thickness, and soil bulk density, and during the investigation process, 30 monitoring points and 81 tests are involved, along with only 4.05 kg soil sample and 16 200 yuan which will be consumed. And the monitoring point data in the layout have a good representation for the data of farmland productivity survey and quality evaluation of cultivated land. The optimized plan shows obvious advantages in monitoring pertinence, convenience and monitoring cost, and effectively improves the quality monitoring efficiency of cultivated land. This method is feasible and has good application value. It can obtain precise and a large amount of information by means of less input, which can be used for the reference for the optimization of land quality monitoring points. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The change of land cover has a profound influence on the quality and distribution pattern of the regional habitat, thus changing the function and evolution of biodiversity. As a special ecology function zone, the ecological security of Three Gorges Reservoir Area affects the whole Yangtze River valley. The proportion of the total area of Three Gorges Reservoir Area in Chongqing City reaches 80%, and thus the study on land cover change and ecosystem and biodiversity function evolution is beneficial to the regional ecological environment protection, remediation and improvement. Taking Three Gorges Reservoir Area (Chongqing section) as an example, this paper analyzed the evolution and trend of regional land cover and biodiversity function from the year of 2005 to 2020 through the comprehensive use of the CA-Markov (cellular automaton and Markov) model and InVEST (integrated valuation of ecosystem services and tradeoffs) model. For the data used in this paper, one part was from the remote sensing monitoring data in The ecological ten years, which was issued by the Ministry of National Environmental Protection, and the other part was from the land use map in 2015. Based on the software of ArcGIS 10.1, ENVI 5.0 and IDRISI, the land use type was classified into 6 kinds in the evolution and trend of land cover and biodiversity function of the study area. On the basis of the simulation of land cover in 2020 by using CA-Markov model, the InVEST model was used to quantitatively calculate the biodiversity function in 2005, 2010, 2015 and 2020. The results showed that: 1) In the 2 periods of 2005-2010 and 2010-2015, various types of land cover areas and land cover dynamic degrees showed the state of "four increase and two decrease" and "three increase and three decrease". 2) The Kappa coefficient reached 0.92 when the CA-Markov model was used in simulation, which showed that the model could be well applied to the simulation of land cover in Three Gorges Reservoir Area (Chongqing section). 3) The highest values of habitat degradation index in the 4 yeas were 0.1681, 0.2071, 0.1909, and 0.1812, respectively, and the higher habitat degradation index was located in the city's surrounding areas as well as the banks of the Yangtze River, Jialing River and Wujiang River, and Daba Mountain's habitat degradation index was lower. 4) The good regional habitat quality was mainly distributed in the areas including Daba Mountain, Wuling Mountain and Simian Mountain, while the poor biodiversity function appeared alongside the Yangtze River and Jialing River. The total score and the average score of the 4 years were 34337710, 36829020, 36345590, 35530500 and 0.5139, 0.5512, 0.5439, 0.5317, respectively. 5) The analysis of habitat quality showed that the function of biodiversity was increasing in the past 15 years, which changed from the large scale fluctuation into small area change, and the biodiversity function of the whole region tended to be stable. The research may reveal the influence of dynamic land cover change on biodiversity function, show the important role of the delineation of red line of ecological protection to regional ecological security, and provide scientific basis for optimizing the regional ecological environment, as well as scientific support for the sustainable development of regional economy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The simulation of land use change in mountainous urban fringes is always a difficult problem. Existing methods, based on the traditional cellular automata (CA)-Markov coupling model, to capture and simulate such changes in this special areas suffer from notable deficiencies. In this paper, we explore, based on a case study of a mountainous urban fringe in Southwestern China, the performance of an improved method that combines the traditional CA-Markov model with multi-criteria evaluation (MCE). We develop an MCE based AHP model fitted by constraining conditions and factors in the study area. The MCE output is then used as the input of the CA-Markov model to simulate land use changes in the study area based on three periods (2006, 2011, and 2016). Meanwhile, the simulated results by the traditional CA-Markov model are also obtained. Both land use simulation results (the simulation images) are then compared against the observed land use in 2016 (the existing image in 2016) to examine the performance of the improved CA-Markov method. The results show that: 1) Establishing the missing link between the MCE process and the conventional CA-Markov model using land use suitability maps can significantly improve the performance of conventional CA-Markov model in mountainous urban fringes. The results from the case study show that the overall 93.15% simulation accuracy is much higher than that of the average 80% accuracy from most traditional CA-Markov models used in other similar areas. 2) The case study further indicates that from 2006 to 2016, the areas of cultivated land, garden, woodland, grassland, water body, and unused land in study area are decreasing annually. By contrast, the areas of urban land and rural settlement are increasing. The types with the most changes are cultivated land and urban land. This situation indicates that the rapid urbanization in mountainous urban fringe is still a mode of denotation expansion, in which a large amount of agricultural land, especially cultivated land, is occupied by urban construction. 3) The simulation shows that if the current rapid urbanization rate is maintained, then by 2030, the areas of cultivated land, garden, woodland, water body, unused land and rural settlement will be decreased by 6442.46, 923.53, 3239.17, 72.55, 41.26, 352.07 hm2, respectively. The increased land types mainly include urban land and grassland. We also argue the implications of the findings and suggest areas of further work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Understanding the historical change trajectory of Land Use/Land Cover Change (LUCC) is helpful to analyze the land use trends under the interference of human activities and changes in the natural environment, thereby helping decision makers to eliminate the negative impact of unreasonable land use patterns to the greatest extent. Yellow River Basin is the fifth longest river in the world, its ecological environment continues to deteriorate due to the rapid population growth and urban expansion, which has become one of the regions with the most serious soil erosion in China. Aiming to promote the ecological quality and high-quality development of social economy under the human interference and natural environment change, we analyzed the spatiotemporal dynamic of the LUCC in the Yellow River Basin (Henan section) from the watershed scale and proposed policy recommendations. We introduced the chord diagram visualization model to intuitively show the flow, direction and diversity of land cover changes, which would enrich the visual research method system of the land cover quantity transfer trajectory. The land use change index, chord diagram model and gravity center transfer model were used in this paper to analyze the spatial-temporal evolution trajectory and policy implications of the land use pattern in the Yellow River Basin (Henan section) in the past 30 years based on the land use remote sensing data in 1990, 2000, 2010 and 2018. The results showed that: 1) Ecological conservation land (35%) was mainly concentrated in the mountainous areas with higher elevation in the middle reaches; food security land (55%) and production and living land (10%) were mainly distributed in the central and eastern plains. 2) The outflows and inflows of dry land from 1990 to 2018 showed significant dominance; paddy field, water and grassland were dominated by outflow; urban land, rural settlements and other construction land were dominated by inflow. 3) The land use change in central cities had significant regional driving effects throughout the period. 4) The gravity center of food security land and ecological conservation land moved to the West and the area showed a decreasing trend, which proved that the high-quality cultivated land in the plain area in the lower reaches decreased and the ecosystem service function gradually weakened; The shift of gravity center of urban land to the East indicated that the social and economic development in the lower reaches were gradually active. The shift of gravity center of rural residential and other construction land to the West indicated that the population scale in the middle reaches was gradually increasing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sustainable management of landscapes determines the relationship between each ecosystem service on different spatial scales. Taking Yanchi County of Ningxia in China as the research area, this paper aims to clarify the interaction between the main ecosystem services of grazing-prohibited grassland in agro-pasture ecotone, using various techniques, such as data extraction of grassland, remote sensing inversion, and spatial analysis. After local correction to InVEST model, three key ecosystem services, including the carbon storage, the water conservation and soil conservation after grazing prohibition during 2000－2015, were measured to define the features of their spatial-temporal changes. The spatial trade-offs were represented quantitatively for three services, and the partial correlation analysis at a pixel scale was used to analyze the spatial synergies at the township scale. The results show that three indicators of grassland ecosystem, including the functions of carbon storage, water and soil conservation, were significantly enhanced since the grazing prohibition. Specifically, the total carbon storage and density increased from 2 174 600 tons and 5.78 t/hm2 to 2 631 200 tons and 6.19 t/hm2, respectively; the quantity and density of water conservation increased from 28.84 million tons and 76.69 t/hm2 to 61.18 million tons and 143.92 t/hm2, respectively; and the total quantity and density of soil conservation increased from 13.83 million tons and 36.78 t/hm2 to 34.74 million tons and 81.71 t/hm2, respectively. However, there was a significant "N" type fluctuation in the increasing process. During the whole period, the range of carbon storage in grassland ecosystem varied slowly with continuous increase or decrease; while the water and soil conservation showed a remarkable increase or decrease. In terms of regional differences, the increases of carbon storage and water conservation in the north were higher than that in the south, whereas, the increase of soil conservation in the south was higher than that in the north. The function of carbon storage was closely related to the grassland type, indicating small interannual fluctuation and stable growth. The water and soil conservation can depend significantly on precipitation and terrain, leading to large interannual fluctuations and significant spatial differences. There was a spatial synergistic relationship between the soil and water conservation (86.34%) of grassland. The relationship between carbon storage and water conservation was complex, where the spatial trade-off and synergetic relationship were not correlation (47.66% and 52.34% respectively), while the carbon storage and soil conservation showed a spatial synergistic relationship (69.55%). Terrains dominated the synergies and trade-offs relationship between the carbon storage and water conservation, as well the carbon storage and soil conservation. Specifically, the synergetic relationship in areas revealed a large topographic relief, while there was most trade-offs relationship in flat areas. Therefore, the quantitative visualization can be used to evaluate the spatial trade-offs and synergies among the services of grassland ecosystem. The proposed method can further provide a scientific basis for the optimization of the grassland ecosystem, and thereby serve as a sound support for the sustainable management of grassland resources. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Evolution of cultivated land needs to be clarified in the driving mechanism for the sustainable land use in China. Most studies generally focused on the relationship between the evolutionary data and the driving mechanism in the evolution of cultivated land use. However, research on the drivers of marginal impact is rare, such as the spatial factor density that represented by the POI points. There can be a tipping point of marginal impact, when the quantity reaches a specific region, in the distance to the main road represented by the human factors. In this paper, the marginal effect analysis was used to make a preliminary evaluation, taking Southern Hubei as an example. Landsat remote sensing images were selected for the interpretation data of three periods from the year of 2000-2005, 2005-2010 and 2010-2015, including 15 types of POI spatial data. Firstly, the evaluation system of spatial factors was constructed from three aspects, including Euclidean distance indices, POI kernel density indices and locational indices. The Spatio-temporal evolution of cultivated land was systematically analyzed, together with dynamic change in the area from 2000 to 2015. Secondly, the principal component analysis was used to integrate the driving factors for the change of cultivated land. The extracted principal components were selected to construct the multiple Logistic regression models, including interaction terms. Lastly, an emphasis was put on the bidirectional marginal effect of spatial elements in the driving mechanism, and the change rule that illustrated by the graph of marginal effect. The results indicated that: (1) The evolution types of cultivated land showed the agglomeration of the same type, while the specific conversion type strongly depended on the spillover effect of neighboring land use. There was obvious evolution trend from cultivated land to construction, but others were not, possibly due to the influence from the macro-control policy of land use. From 2000 to 2015, the proportion of cultivated land converted to construction land increased from 28% to 44%, and then jumped to 96%, mainly concentrated in areas around towns and along major roads. (2) Marginal effects of spatial factors depend on types of cultivated land and periods. From 2000 to 2015, there was a gradual decrease in the variation range of marginal effect for different conversion types of cultivated land, while the homogeneous intersection point moved in the same direction for marginal effect curves of different transformation types. The dominated marginal effect of natural location factors was on the conversion of cultivated land to construction land, and cultivated land to water area, when the spatial elements of POI were different values. (3) The curve of spatial factors implied that there was a critical value of marginal effect. In the range of critical values, marginal effect changed significantly with the spatial factors, but outside the range, marginal effect tended to be stable. The qualitative and quantitative analysis on the marginal effect of spatial factors can offer a theoretical reference for the optimization of cultivated land layout, and the formulation of regional coordinated development strategy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Land use/land cover change (LUCC) is one of the important driving forces of ecosystem services change. Because ecosystem services depend on different ecological and geographical processes on different spatial and temporal scales, it is of great significance to study ecosystem services based on LUCC. In recent years, the LUCC in the Lower Yellow River has changed obviously, which has a huge impact on the regional ecological environment. Strengthening the research on the land use and Ecosystem Services Value (ESV) can effectively promote the protection of the ecological environment in the Lower Yellow River, which is of great significance for the sustainable development of the whole Yellow River basin ecosystem. Based on the land use classification data of the Lower Yellow River from 1990 to 2015, using the land use change degree and land use transfer matrix, this paper explored the spatiotemporal distribution of land transfer change, and used the equivalent factor method, hot spot analysis and focus model to explore the spatiotemporal evolution and spatial heterogeneity of the county ecosystem service value in the Lower Yellow River. The results showed that: 1) During 1990-2015, the area of farmland, grassland and unused land decreased by 2 894, 1 476 and 856 km² respectively, and the area of built-up land increased by 4598 km² . Farmland was the main contributor of the increase of built-up land. 2) From the perspective of spatiotemporal scale, the ESV of the Lower Yellow River decreased by1.885 billion yuan in 25 years, and the areas with higher average ESV decreased gradually, while the areas with lower average ESV increased gradually. The ESV at the county level changed obviously, and most of the regions showed a downward trend. Sensitivity analysis showed that the ESV of the Lower Yellow River was inelastic to the value coefficient. Even though the value coefficient was uncertain, the calculation of ecosystem services in the whole study area was still stable, which could prove that the research results were credible. 3) From 1990 to 2015, the spatial concentration degree of the high value and low value areas of average ESV in the Lower Yellow River was obvious, but there was a trend of gradual weakening. The barycenter of ESV was located in Yuncheng County, Shandong Province. The ecosystem service value of Shandong Province was always higher than Henan Province. 4)The spatial differentiation of ecosystem service value in the lower reaches of the Yellow River was influenced by the interaction of natural factors, social factors and economic factors, and was the result of the interaction of different driving factors, among which the human comprehensive impact index has the greatest impact on the spatial differentiation of ecosystem service. Therefore, the ecological protection of the Yellow River should strengthen the protection of the vulnerable areas of the ecosystem, strengthen the construction of regional ecological barriers, build the evaluation system of the coordinated development of the ecological economy, and realize the high-quality development of the ecological economy in the Lower Yellow River. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cultivated land fallow pattern is an important part for the implementation of the arable land fallow system. Therefore, it is necessary to explore different fallow patterns for the fully utilization of farmlands in China. This paper aims to refine the differentiated fallow pattern of cultivated land using literature analysis and case studies, together with field data collected from the main pilot areas of cultivated land fallow in China. Results showed that: 1) the pattern design of cultivated land fallow depends on three factors, including system subject, system object and system environment, in the specific land fallow system. The guideline of pattern design can be based on the principle of available local conditions, food security, the trinity of social, economic and ecological benefits, and the main standard of "rest, maintain and utilization" for fallow land. In pattern design of differentiated cultivated land fallow, the main contents include the pattern definitions, pattern categories, applicable areas, case areas of pattern, and typical fallow technical measures. 2) Five fallow patterns of cultivated land in China mainly are: fallow pattern of water-saving and retention in the groundwater funnel area, fallow pattern of clean decontamination in the land pollution area, fallow pattern types of ecological restoration in the ecologically degraded area, productivity conservation of cultivated land in highly intensive cultivation area, and the pattern of "transfer + fallow" in the seriously abandoned area of cultivated land. 3) Technical measures of fallow patterns are related to fallow time, fallow cultivation and fertilization, fallow tillage, fallow experiment and demonstration fields. The fallow time of pattern design can be divided long-term, short-term and seasonal fallow. The fallow fertilization of patterns consists of no-till net green manure, less tillage with green manure and bean rotation, no-tillage green manure mixed with grass, no tillage manure returned to the field, straw returning, and organic fertilizer (fertilized farmyard manure), and mixing with the above various ways. The fallow tillage mainly includes crushing and returning green manure to the field, fallow shallowing, deep turning and drying, and rotary tillage, and other related technical systems. The fallow patterns of experiment and demonstration fields include a variety of screening test, fallow time test, determination test of soil index, and comparison test between fallow and uncultivated farmland. 4) The typical fallow experimental demonstration fields in Huanxian county, Gansu Province, can be expected to popularize in different fallow areas of China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Study on changes in microscopic structure of saline-alkali soil induced by different land usage in the Yellow River Delta is important to understand their consequence for soil mechanical and hydrological processes and improve soil management and remediation. This paper presents the results of an experimental study on microscopic structure of soils taken from farmland, grassland and beach at different soil depths in this region. The particle size and mineral composition of each soil sample were measured using the particle size distribution analysis and X-ray diffraction analysis, respectively. The poresize distribution was analyzed using mercury intrusion porosimetry, and soil particle arrangement and pore characteristics were measured using scanning electron microscopy (SEM). The results showed that the main particles of the three soils were silt, accounting for more than 60% of the total particle composition. The clay content in the three soils increased in the order of farmland > beach > grassland. Primary minerals such as quartz, calcite and albite were dominant in the three soils, accounting for more than 85% of their total mineral composition. The clay minerals in the three soils were dominate by illite, and the proportion of the clay minerals was less than 15% of the total mineral composition. The clay mineral content was higher in the farmland soil than in the grassland and beach soils and, as such, the mineral composition alone cannot explain the low permeability of the soils. The porosity of the farmland, beach and grassland soils was 25%, 32.58%-39.94% and 40.84%46.16% respectively. With increasing depth, the porosity of the grassland and beach soil increased, whereas the change in farmland soil porosity did not show an identifiable trend. The pore characteristics of the grassland and beach soils were similar, while the farmland soil was dominated by micropores and ultra-micropores with pore diameter less than 2 µm. The specific pore surface area of the farmland soil was considerably larger than that of grassland and beach soils, with the adsorption capacity of the former much higher than that of the latter. Farmland soil was densely structured; it was dominated by micro-fissures, with disordered structures formed between the skeleton particles; its basic structural units were flat and flaky particles; the skeleton particles ware dominantly surface contact while the particles were cemented by clay minerals. The microstructure of the grassland soil was closely inlaid particles with a "brick-wall" arrangement, and the particle connection was mainly surface contact; it was composed of closely inlaid massive particles and overhead pores; there was no cementation between its skeleton particles. The beach soil was composed of closely accumulated granular particles and intergranular pores; there was no cementation between skeleton particles. These results improved our understanding of the changes in microscopic structure of saline-alkali soils in response to land usage in the Yellow River Delta. They provide guidance for remediation, utilization and development of coastal saline-alkali soil in the Yellow River Delta. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Simulation of rural residential land exit pricing can provide reference compensation price and range for the government. The state encourages the conditional transfer of rural residential land and allows farmers who have already settled in urban area to exit the rural residential land willingly. The function evaluation and value accounting of rural residential land are important links to promote the transfer of rural residential land into the market, revitalize rural assets and protect farmers’ land rights and interests. Three places were chosen as typical regions to study rural residential land exit, including Jiaxing City in the north Zhejiang plain, Yiwu City in the middle Zhejiang foothill basin and Taishun County in the south Zhejiang mountain area. Based on the law of distance attenuation, taking the designated town as the research unit, according to the distance between the rural residential land and the town center, the rural residential land was divided into urban villages, suburbs, outer suburbs, and remote areas. On this basis, the initial compensation amount for rural residential land exit in different regions and different locations was calculated based on the function of rural residential land. Built the simulation model in Java according to the actual rural residential land exit process. Then based on the complex adaptive system theory and multi-agent simulation method, this paper simulated the interaction behavior of micro-subjects and tried to price the residential land exit compensation from the scale of micro-farmers. The results showed that: 1) The compensation price range of rural residential land in different regions had significant differences, and the price gap between urban villages, suburbs, outer suburbs and remote areas in the same region was significant. All the urban villages of three regions had a low willingness to exit, which required more negotiations before they fully agreed to exit, while the villages of the remote areas had a relatively strong willingness to exit, among which the suburbs of Jiaxing City had the strongest desire to exit. 2) The stronger the farmer’s willingness to exit, the less the number of interactions with the government in the negotiations, and the lower the increase in the price range. The urban villagers in three areas were the regions with low willingness to exit. They needed more negotiations to fully agree to exit, while the remote areas farmers’ exit willingness were relatively strong. As the initial farmer's tough degree μ value increased, the number of iterations between farmers and the government increased linearly. Increasing the threshold of a tough degree would correspondingly increase the number of negotiations between farmers and the government and increase government costs. The amount of compensation that the government can increase in each negotiation is determined comprehensively by the local government's financial situation, administrative level and capacity to be close to civilians, which may vary in different regions. The larger the amount parameter (d) increased in each negotiation, the higher the total amount of the final exit compensation will be. Based on complex adaptive system theory, the multi-agent simulation method can provide new ideas for rural residential land exit pricing and scientific references for further improvement of rural residential land system reform. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) has been increasingly used to aid agricultural production and land management, and this paper investigates the feasibility of using ultra-high resolution UAV images to differentiate land usage. We took a farmland at Dehui of Jilin province as an example and acquired its UAV images. The digital surface model (DSM) and the digital orthophoto map (DOM) of the region was generated using the digital photogrammetry software. We then calculated the regional terrain factors and the vegetation indices, and combined them with the original orthophoto model to construct the baseline images for land use classification. The tool of estimation of scale parameters (ESP) was used to extract the optimal scale for segmentation, and a level of objective was constructed after processing the multi-scale segmentation based on the optimal value of each parameter. Terrain and morphological features of each object was used for the classification. It included two steps. The first one was to perform an object-oriented classification of all the five features based on the random forest algorithm. We used a five-feature classifications to analyze the impact of different features. The first one only used the spectrum feature to classify and the index features, morphological features, terrain features and textural features were added consecutively for further classification. The overall accuracy, kappa coefficient, the omission errors and the commission errors for each feature were compared. In the second step, Boruta feature selection method was applied to the original feature space to obtain an optimal feature subset. Based on the optimal feature subset, land use classification was conducted using the random forest algorithm, naive Bayesian algorithm, logistic regression method and the support vector machine (SVM). Using the same optimal feature subset, the influence of each method on the classification was tested. The results showed that the accuracy of the five feature selection schemes was 93.72%, 97.35%, 96.93%, 97.77%, and 98.04% respectively. Adding morphological features reduced accuracy, while adding other features improved accuracy. The scheme with five features gave the best result. The commission was mainly between the bare land and residential land, and the omissions were mainly among grassland, water canals and roads. The confusion between them was likely to be caused by the similarity of spectral, morphology, textural properties and their similar positions. In this study, the important features for classification were spectrum features, textural features, index features and terrain features, and the least important features were morphological features. There were 72 features passing the Boruta test and forming the optimal feature subset. Based on this feature space, the overall accuracy with the above four different algorithms was 98.19%, 96.79%, 90.22% and 96.23% respectively. The classification using the random forest algorithm gave the best result. In conclusion, adding the terrain features can assist classification of land coverage and improve accuracy. Compared with other algorithms, the random forest algorithm is most robust in classification of land coverage in using high dimensional feature space. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With rapid development in economy in China the demand for tourism has been changed exerting pressure on tourism resorts to transform and upgrade. As tourism area bears the responsibility of sustaining social and economic development, its land use has to be diversified, leading to a potential land use conflicts. However, there is a paucity of study on that and we attempt to address this knowledge gap. Assuming that a tourism resort should at least have ecological function, productivity and suitability for living (ecological-production-living suitability), we proposed an empirical model to identify and diagnose potential land use conflicts in tourism resorts by taking Wuyishan National Tourism Resort as an example. The potential land use conflict in resort was divided into five zones with different conflicting levels: zone without conflict, zone with mild conflict zone, zone with moderate conflict, zone with intense conflict, and zone with severe conflict. The conflict was divided into four levels: stable and controllable, quite controllable, slightly out of control, uncontrollable. Preliminary studies showed that there were significant differences in ecological-production-living suitability of the land use in this region, revealing existence of competitions and conflicts in land use. The results showed that the areas with land use conflict ranging from controllable to uncontrollable accounted for 17.76%, 35.59%, 22.37%, 23.74% and 0.55% of the whole area. The stable and controllable zone was mainly in the western, southeastern and central regions, and areas in the high-end health resort area, pastoral health resort area and eco-recreational area. The quite controllable zone was mainly in the transition zone from human production areas to the life and ecological protection area, including the waterfront recreation area and eco-recreational areas. The basic out-of-control conflicts were mainly distributed in the intensive activities of human production and life, which had both constructive and destructive conflicts. The serious out-of-control conflicts were smaller in area but deeper in degree. The spatial distribution, expression and conflict degree of potential land use conflict areas determined the conflict governance strategies should also be different. For example, strategies such as spatial control, quality improvement, and functional manifestation could be adopted according to local conditions. The framework of identification and governance of potential land use conflicts in tourist resorts proposed in this paper can accurately reflect the actual pattern of land use conflicts and can provide reference for the land use planning and management in tourist resorts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Under the limited reserve resources of cultivated land, it is necessary to change the traditional extensive utilization methods of cultivated land resources, and the road of intensive development is the most effective way to solve the human-land contradiction. The scientific analysis of spatial and temporal differences and influencing factors of cultivated land intensive use in the region is of great practical significance for promoting intensive potential exploitation and efficient utilization of cultivated land resources. Taking the Yangtze River Economic Belt as a case study, evaluation index system of cultivated land intensive use was constructed from the dimensions of input intensity, utilization intensity, output efficiency and sustainability. Projective pursuit model was used to quantitatively measure the level of cultivated land intensive use in the Yangtze River Economic Belt from 1978 to 2016. Based on the multiscale perspective of watershed, province and city, through the coefficient of variation, spatial autocorrelation index, the paper explored multiscale spatial-temporal differences of cultivated land intensive use in the Yangtze River Economic Belt. The influence mechanism of intensive utilization of cultivated land was revealed by using geographic detector model. The results showed that: since 1978, the level of cultivated land intensive use in the Yangtze River Economic Belt has improved at the watershed scale, but in the evolution process, the difference characteristics of “east high west low” have appeared; the intensive use of cultivated land in the Yangtze River Economic Belt at provincial and city scales presents spatial agglomeration characteristics, and the smaller the scale, the more significant the spatial agglomeration. During the period of the study, the types of spatial correlation between provinces and regions were mainly positive correlation, and there was a phenomenon of “club convergence” in cultivated land intensive use in the Yangtze River Economic Belt at city scale. The hot spots are mainly concentrated in Shanghai and Southern Jiangsu, and gradually evolved into Shaoxing-Hangzhou and Lancang; the cold point area was mainly concentrated in the Western Sichuan Plateau area. Natural factors, population growth, economic and social development, and institutional policies can effectively explain the spatial-temporal differences in the intensive use of cultivated land in the Yangtze River Economic Belt; demographic factors and economic and social factors have a significant impact on cultivated land intensive use, while policy factors have a strong driving effect. Finally, suggestions were put forward on how to promote cultivated land intensive use from the aspects of comprehensive land remediation, increasing the input of elements, optimizing and adjusting the structure of cultivated land, and promoting innovation in agricultural science and technology. In addition, it should be pointed out that there are still some deficiencies in this study: only the spatial and temporal patterns of cultivated land intensive use in six time sections since 1978 are analyzed on the time scale, it is also necessary to further reveal the temporal and spatial differentiation of intensive cultivated land use in the Yangtze River Economic Belt at a multitime scale. In terms of the impact mechanism, the factors of farmer households have not been discussed in this study, and the factors of farmer households have an important impact on regional cultivated land use efficiency. How to reveal the micro-mechanism of spatial and temporal differentiation of cultivated land intensive use in the Yangtze River Economic Belt from the perspective of farmers will be the next deepening area and direction of this study. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Land is the carrier of human activities. All kinds of social and economic problems in the process of urbanization can be reflected in land use. A large number of labor force has been transferred from rural areas especially in mountainous areas to cities, which has changed the population distribution pattern and land use pattern in different time and regional systems. The marginalization of cultivated land is a typical land use pattern in mountainous areas, and clarifying the characteristics of land marginalization and its mechanism can be used for reference to realize land capital appreciation and rural revitalization. By employing the survey data about 901 farm households involving 6563 plots in Wulong District and Youyang County in Chongqing City of China in 2012 and 2018 and compilation of agricultural product cost and benefit data from 2007 to 2017, this paper regarded cultivated land as an asset for families and revealed the evolution characteristics of cultivated land asset value in recent years, and a Probit model was constructed to identify the driving forces and explored the driving mechanism of abovementioned phenomena. The results showed that: 1) in recent years, the assets value of cultivated land in the investigated areas kept declining, which was manifested in the fact that the generally cultivated maize per km² has changed from yield to loss, and the average weighted net yield of major crops has decreased from 1 384.50 yuan per hm² in 2012 to 252.30 yuan per hm² in 2018, with a drop of 77.09%. The average rent of cultivated land dropped from 1577.45 yuan/hm² in 2012 to 361.65 yuan/hm² in 2018, while the proportion of rent-free land transfer rate from 71.09 % to 82.21 %. It can be seen that the assets value of cultivated land in typical mountainous areas in Chongqing are in the decline stage. (2) Plot size, the distance from the homestead, plot quality and land fragmentation were the important determinants of free-rent land transfer, while the rising opportunity cost of farming was the root cause. The mechanism of devaluation of cultivated land is that urbanization has pushed up labor costs and reduces agricultural profits, and cultivated land assets have devaluated and even abandoned. From the view of cost-benefit analysis, the abandonment of cultivated land in the study area is a normal and rational economic activity for farmers, and the devaluation of cultivated land assets is exactly in line with the original intention of returning farmland to forests. The devalued cultivated land or abandoned land of these assets is conducive to improving the ecological environment of the mountainous areas. At the same time, the idle or abandoned land resources in mountainous areas become relatively rich. The government should reasonably introduce urban capital and fully exploit the land resources in order to realize the land capital appreciation in mountainous areas and develop local economy. Furthermore, the government should stop large-scale land reclamation projects in mountainous areas and appropriately replenish cultivated land through land reclamation to avoid waste of public financial funds and destruction of the ecological environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Scientific identification of the spatial evolution process of rural settlements is an important basis for optimizing the space of rural production, living and ecology in rural revitalization. In this paper, Jimei District of Xiamen city, which locates in the Southern Fujian Province, was selected as a typical study area. Based on the classification and interpretation data of remote sensing images at four time points from 1986 to 2017, the spatial evolution process and mechanism of rural settlement land in Jimei District in recent 30 years were quantitatively identified by using standard deviation ellipse, nuclear density and spatial autocorrelation analysis methods. The results showed that the density of rural settlement could be divided into background area, low density area, medium density area and high density area in Jimei District. There was spatial heterogeneity in the density distribution of rural settlements in Jimei District. The medium and high density areas were concentrated in central areas with good agricultural conditions. The high density areas were far away from the centers of urban and industrial mine. There were more obvious spatial continuity features between the high and low density area. The total area of rural settlements showed an increasing trend year by year. The evolution process of settlements was dominated by correlated expansion. Although the number of patches had decreased, the total area and average area of the settlements continued to increase. The combined impact of correlated expansion and contraction leaded to an increasing difference in the size between large and small settlements. With rapid development of urban-rural integration and rural economy, the hot spots of settlement expansion appeared in traditional agricultural industry concentration areas. With the settlement land around Jimei and Xinglin City transformed into state-owned land, the low-low cluster areas appeared. Combined with analysis of remote sensing image, the contracted settlements were closely related to urbanization and industrialization, and the settlements with good traffic location were more susceptible to urbanization and industrialization. The spatial distribution of contracted patches in rural settlements was random, and the spatial autocorrelation existed in the expanded patches. From 1986 to 2017, the expansion of rural settlements did not generate a signification cold zone, and the hotspot clustering pattern was dominated by high clusters in Jimei District. The basic spatial pattern of settlements remained stable due to the combination of topographic factors and evolution characteristics. It was found that there were spatial differences in the hot spots of settlement evolution in various periods by visualizing the rate and direction of the center of gravity of the settlements in each period. The core density analysis and partial autocorrelation analysis revealed a close relationship between settlement evolution and geographical environment, industrial evolution and urban and rural relationship change, and reflected the driving characteristics and internal mechanism of urban and rural interaction process of rural settlement spatial evolution in different development stages under the background of industrialization and urbanization in Jimei District. The results of this study could provide theoretical and methodological supports for optimizing development layout of rural settlements and coordinating rural revitalization planning and land remediation planning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Rehabilitation of arable land is an important measure to increase the quantity of arable land and improve the quality of arable land. It is an important way for the country to realize the "food crop production strategy based on farmland management and technological application". At present, the improvement of arable land mainly focuses on the improvement of arable land quality and productivity, but insufficient attention to the health of arable land. In this paper, we used the stepwise correction method to evaluate the arable land productivity, analyzed the limiting factors affecting the arable land productivity, used K-means clustering method to cluster the limiting factors in Daxing District; and used the Nemero index method and the minimum limiting factor method for arable land health diagnosis, analysis of the health of arable land; comprehensive analysis of limiting factors and health diagnosis results, and division of land remediation areas. The results showed that there were 15 types of restriction factors in Daxing District, mainly in the four types of “soil profile pattern”, “arable land fragmentation”, “soil organic matter” and “soil profile pattern-arable land fragmentation”, The limitation of soil profile pattern ，arable land fragmentation and soil organic matter was relatively common; the area of arable land with mild sub-health, moderate sub-health and severe sub-health in Daxing District was 17 924.31, 6 629.28 and 16 260.97 hm², respectively. From a spatial perspective, the light sub-health cultivated land was mainly distributed in the eastern part of Daxing District, moderately healthy arable land was mainly distributed in the western part of Daxing District, while severe sub-health arable land was mainly distributed in the southern part of Daxing District. The area of cultivated land in the capacity-rehabilitation key remediation area was 13 582.40 hm², accounting for 33.28% of the total area of cultivated land, mainly in the eastern and northeastern townships such as Qingyundian Town, Changziying Town, Bohai Area, Huangcun District, and Caiyu Town, as well as some areas of Qizhen and Lixian Towns. The area of capacity improvement general rectification area was 10 971.20 hm², accounting for 26.88% of the total area of arable land, and was concentrated in areas such as Pang Gezhuang Town, Yuzhen Town, South of Caiyu Town and Beijiao Village Town. The ecological conservation type fallow treatment area was 16 260.98 hm², the largest, accounting for 39.84% of the total area of arable land, and was settled in the towns including some areas of Lixian Town, Wei shanzhuang Town and Yufa Town and more in Panggezhuang town. According to different types of remediation, different measures for consolidation of arable land were proposed. The research on arable land consolidation based on limiting factors and health diagnosis provided some reference for the current comprehensive improvement of land space and overall protection, systematic restoration and comprehensive management of arable land resources. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]