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Studies on rural livelihood, agriculture patterns from different parts of Nepal have mentioned the introduction of new crops from different pocket areas of the country primarily resulted due to climate change and market development. However, thesestudies have lacked scholarship on how the changes occur in rural areas and how rural households have adopted the changes are least focused. Based on the field surveys using questionnaires, interviews, FGD, analysis of climate data, and map data, thispaper aims to fulfill the aforementioned gap based on the study from three elevation zones. It shows a wider adoption of different new crops and vegetables which are varied by elevation zones and by the cultural groups living there. The detailed analysis ofvarious events and underlying processes concludes that out-migration and off-farm employment, infrastructure development and increasing connectivity, climate change, access to market, and changing food habits are the major drivers of the changes. Thesedrivers began to play their roles at different times, and different scales in different zones, and finally their complex interplay resulted changes in the rural agricultural landscape.

Determining the associations between landscape pattern and river water quality and quantifying the abrupt change points of landscape metrics are vital to optimize landscape planning and improve basin water quality. This study took an agricultural basin in western China as a case study. River water quality of 61 sub-basin outlets were monitored during wet and dry seasons from 2020 to 2021. Landscape metrics were extracted at 100 m, 300 m, 500 m riparian buffer and sub-basin scales, respectively. Relationships between water quality and landscape pattern at multiple scales were explored by using redundancy analysis (RDA). Results showed that urban-related landscape metrics served as the primary contributor to degrade water quality during both seasons, followed by cropland-related metrics, which might be attributed to the increase of urban land and reduction of agricultural chemical fertilizer use. Landscape metrics could better explain the water quality variations during wet season than dry season. The explanatory abilities of landscape variables to overall water quality appeared little difference among spatial scales during wet season, whereas landscape metrics within 100 m riparian buffer had much larger explanatory rate than other spatial scales during dry season. Results of abrupt change point analysis revealed that the abrupt change interval values (ACIVs) of percentage of urban land (PLAND

Migration is a global strategy for promoting economic growth and sustainable urbanization, specifically in developing countries. It is critical for governments to understand the determinants of migration decision for rural households so that proper migration measures can be taken. Different from previous studies that mainly focus on migration determinants without considering migration patterns, this paper divides migration patterns into three types—no migration, labor migration, and family migration, and examines the determinants for “no migration–migration” and “labor migration–family migration,” respectively. The binary logistic model is adopted to analyze the impacts of various migration factors in Chongqing city. Results show that: (1) per capita non-agricultural income plays the most significant positive role in driving “no migration–migration.” This is followed by the number of household labor force, whereas road accessibility is the key factor for inhibiting migration. (2) The key contributory factor for “labor migration–family migration” is per capita non-agricultural income. This is followed by the residential distance from towns, whereas the number of household labor force and the average age of labor force are restraining factors. The research results can effectively provide scientific reference for local governments to advance the transfer of the surplus rural labor force to promote sustainable urbanization.

Developing low carbon city (LCC) has been widely appreciated as an important strategy for sustainable development. In line with this, an increasing number of cities globally have launched low carbon practices in recent years and gained various types of experience. However, it appears that existing studies do not present methods of how to use these valuable LCC experience in solving new problems. This study therefore introduces an experience mining approach to assist decision‐makers in reusing previous experience when tailoring LCC development strategies. The mining approach consists of three processes, namely, collecting historical cases which have been experiencing LCC, establishing LCC experience base, and mining similar experience cases. This study innovates the existing experience mining approach by introducing a two‐step mining process with considering the perspective of problem‐based urban characteristics (PBUCs) and the perspective of solution‐based urban characteristics (SBUCs). The application of the introduced mining approach has been demonstrated by a case study, where Shenyang's energy structure is adopted as the target problem. The new experience mining approach provides a valuable reference for decision‐makers to retrieve similar cases for improving LCC development with the consideration of city characteristics.

Climate change affects the livelihood of farmers in a variety of ways. Farmers’ indigenous knowledge influences their perception of climate-related issues. A perception-based, semi-structured questionnaire survey of 530 households was performed to gather information about the awareness of, indicators for, and determinants of climate change. The survey covered three ecological regions of Nepal. The statistical analysis was done with a chi-square (χ2) test and a binary logistic regression (BLR) model to screen farmers’ perception of climate change. This study shows that socio-economic and agricultural characteristics of the farmers directly influence their perception of climate change. Farmers have identified climate change indicators in various forms, e.g., an increase in temperature (99.2% of those surveyed), a decrease in precipitation (98.9%), and an increase in climate-induced diseases and pests (96.8%) for agricultural crops. Observed precipitation (− 16.093 mm/year; p = 0.055) and temperature (0.0539 °C/year; p = 0.007) between 2000 and 2015 are both consistent with farmers’ perception. The selected independent variables are significantly correlated with the dependent variables, as confirmed by the BLR model, where χ2 = 83 with p = 0.002. The BLR shows there is a strong relationship between farmers’ perception of climate change and the group of descriptive variables, with a coefficient of determination of 85%. The biophysical characteristics and impact variables were the most important determinants. It is important that organizations and policymakers in Nepal develop adaptation strategies that improve the livelihoods of farmers. These strategies include introducing drought-tolerant crops, developing disease- and pest-tolerant seeds, constructing irrigation systems, and building hospitals.

How agriculture can better adapt to climate change has been a key topic of interest for scholars. This study provides insights from the eastern agricultural region of the Tibetan Plateau (TP). The Yellow River-Huangshui River valley (YHV) is an important food-producing region on the TP. The agricultural production of small households has been affected by significant climate change and by a series of interventions on the part of the local government. Five main adaptation strategies adopted by households include crop rotation (86.71%), increasing agricultural inputs (74.21%), changing the sowing time of crops (61.51%), expanding cropland area (32.94%) and raising more livestock (16.27%) to adapt to the effects of climate change. Regression analysis revealed that households’ perceptions of climate change and five types of livelihood capital are important factors influencing their adoption of various livelihood strategies. In addition, the adaptation strategies used by households in the YHV are incremental adjustments to their existing production, while transformative adaptation strategies (e.g., irrigation facilities, improved crop varieties, agricultural insurance), which are larger in scale and could fundamentally reduce households’ vulnerability to climate change have been planned by the government. Due to the presence of government interventions, households in the YHV area are more proactive in adapting to climate change. Finally, the results of this paper are conducive to guiding the local government to enhance its intervention role to promote households’ climate change adaptation behavior.

The Tibetan Plateau (TP) is an important ecological security barrier for China and, indeed, for all Asia. Land use and land cover changes in the plateau not only affect the ecological environment and regional development of the plateau itself but also affect the stability and economic development of ecosystems in eastern China and other parts of Asia. This paper is based on an examination of the achievements of land use and cover change in the TP and a reanalysis of data including that of Climate Change Initiative Land Cover from 1992 to 2015; land use data provided by the Resource and Environmental Science Data Center of the Chinese Academy of Sciences for 1995, 2000, 2010 and 2015; and statistical data from Qinghai and Tibet. The paper analyzes the overall characteristics of land use and land cover changes in the TP and the spatial and temporal processes and their driving forces of land use and land cover change in typical regions and land types. This research is important not only for land change science and global change research but also for the promotion of the plateau and its adjacent areas. In recent decades, research has shown that the land use and land cover structure of the TP is stable, and the proportion of first-level land use type change was less than 7% from 1992 to 2015. Most of these changes are single time changes, with multiple land change occurring only in 1.85% of the total change area. The quality of land cover has been improved in areas where no land type change occurred. The Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) showed an increasing trend in 24.45% of the area and a decreasing trend in only 1.31% of the area. The area of cultivated land, forest, grassland, wetland, and construction land on the plateau has increased, whereas bare land, glacier, and snow cover area has decreased. In most parts of the TP, the quality of alpine grassland has improved; however, in some areas, it has degraded at a local scale. Most of the woodland has recovered well after phased changes. Prior to 1980, there was a rapid increase in cultivated land area, but this has since become stable with only minor increases. However, the utilization intensity of cultivated land has increased significantly in recent years. Construction land has expanded significantly, and the recent growth rate has accelerated since 2010. Both the increasing speed of change and the construction land area in Qinghai Province are higher than in Tibet. There has been a general trend of a slight decrease in bare land change. In densely populated areas in the Yellow River-Huangshui River Valley and the One-River-Two-Tributaries area, land types that are closely related to human utilization such as construction land, cultivated land, and artificial woodland have undergone obvious changes. In pastoral areas, such as the Northern Tibetan Plateau and the Source Regions of The Three Rivers, overgrazing and ecological construction have significantly affected land cover. In the Qomolangma National Nature Preserve, land use types are diverse; changes are complex; and land cover is more sensitive to both climate change and human activity. There are limitations to the study of land change in the plateau, such as the difficulty of meeting the needs of ecological construction with existing data and the lack of in-depth understanding of the process of land use change and its environmental effects. Field monitoring and remote sensing techniques must be strengthened in order to clarify the process of land use intensity change and its impact on the ecological environment of the TP. These improvements will better serve the construction of an ecological security barrier and the sustainable development of the region.

Governmental policies that can develop advantageous endogenous livelihood transition are of great importance for anti-poverty. However, the existing research finds that in the Tibetan Plateau, there is a certain contradiction between the poverty alleviation policies and the local farmers’ needs, and thus the effect of these policies will be weakened and the goal of poverty alleviation be missed. It is therefore imperative to identify and analyze the factors influencing the livelihood choice so that policy makers and development practitioners can design policies that will tackle the poverty afflicting the majority of the local people. This paper provides a new method for anti-poverty policymaking and conducts a case study to enrich the safety net/cargo net paradigms. In this paper, household data in the YNL river region are used and a two-step clustering method is developed to classify these households into three types: hanging in (type I), stepping up (type II) and stepping out (type III). Then a multinomial logit model is adopted to identify determinants of households’ livelihood choice. The results indicate that drought poses a significant negative impact on farmers’ choice of type II, while household size, educational level of labor and medical expenditure have a significant positive impact on the choice of type II; spring frost, proportion of skilled training, borrowed money and the ratio of agricultural equipment have a significant positive impact on their choice of type III. Some anti-poverty policy implications are put forward in the last on the basis of these determinants.

The Himalayan region serves as a land bridge between China and South Asia but is vulnerable to geopolitical factors. It is important to conduct geopolitical risk assessments to facilitate the restoration and construction of traditional trade routes in the Himalayan region. Based on multisource natural, political, and socioeconomic data, we selected 12 indicators, including topographic relief, landslide risk, multi-hazard index, population density, territorial disputes, conflict risk, corruption perception index, transboundary water disputed risk, night light index, GDP, accessibility, and economic freedom, to assess these risks. A comprehensive assessment of the geopolitical risk in the Himalayan region is presented using the random forest (RF) model, analytic hierarchy process (AHP), entropy weight method, and AHP-entropy weight method. The results indicated that the geopolitical risk in the Himalayan region is generally high in the north and low in the south, with high level of risk primarily concentrated in the Kashmir valley and south, south-central Nepal and southern Tibet, and low level of risk mainly concentrated in the Bhutan and Tibet border areas of China. The high likelihood of natural risk is largely concentrated in the Indian states of Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand, Nepal, southeastern Bhutan, and southern Tibet. Significant political risk is mostly confined to the Kashmir valley and its south, while economic risk is mostly concentrated in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa of Pakistan, Pakistani-administered regions of Kashmir, and Nepal. Geopolitical risk assessment based on the grid scale can better reveal and portray the spatial distribution of geopolitical risk in the Himalayan region and provide a basis for the restoration and construction of traditional trade routes in this region. According to the results of the geopolitical risk assessment, it is recommended that priority be given to construction in areas of relatively low risk, such as those close to Burang Country and Mustang, and that integrated planning be carried out for the restoration and construction of the predominantly low-risk trade routes between China and Bhutan, with further comprehensive analysis of each route conducted in conjunction with field surveys and proposed construction and control strategies.

The Grassland Ecological Protection Award Policy was implemented to address severe grassland degradation in China. This policy utilizes grassland subsidies as an incentive to control the number of livestock and has become the largest payment for ecosystem services program. Although many studies have analyzed the performance of this policy, it remains controversial as to whether grassland subsidies are effective at reducing the number of livestock, moreover, there is still a lack of quantitative studies on the roles of household livelihood assets and livelihood strategies in reducing the number of livestock. On the basis of the sustainable livelihood framework, this paper constructed an analytical framework to research how grassland subsidies affect the number of livestock under the effects of different livelihood capitals and local socioecological contexts. After choosing the Pumqu River Basin of the Tibetan Plateau as the research area, this study classified sample households on the basis of grassland sizes and then examined the effects of grassland subsidies on the number of livestock of different groups of rural households by considering livelihood capital. The results showed that (1) for all the sample households, grassland subsidies caused herdsmen to raise more livestock, which was contrary to the expectation of the grassland protection policy. The invalidation of grassland subsidies was mainly caused by the poor design and implementation of the policy at the local level. (2) In addition, for rural households with different grassland sizes, the subsidies could be effective in reducing the number of livestock for households with small grassland sizes while increasing the number of livestock for households with large grassland sizes. This indicates that some supporting policies and measures for households with smaller grassland sizes should be provided to stimulate the reduction in the number of livestock, and for households with large grassland areas, grassland circulation should be encouraged to promote the large-scale production of livestock husbandry. The finding of this study can help governments to formulate policies tailored towards appropriate subsidies for addressing grassland degradation.

Wetland ecosystems play one of the most crucial roles in the world. Wetlands have the functions of ecological water storage, water supply, and climate regulation, which plays an indispensable role in global environmental security. The Pumqu River Basin (PRB) is located in an area with extremely vulnerable ecological environment, where climate change is obvious. Understanding wetland distribution, changes and causes in the PRB are of great importance to the rational management and protection of wetlands. Using the Landsat series satellite images, wetlands of this area in 2000, 2010, and 2018 were extracted. The results showed that (1) there were obvious regional differences in wetland types and their distribution patterns in the basin. Wetlands were mainly distributed in areas with slopes less than 12° and at elevations between 4000 m and 5500 m. (2) During the past 20 years, the wetland area in the basin decreased, and the changing trend of wetlands was different. Palustrine wetlands decreased tremendously, riverine and lacustrine wetlands first decreased and then increased, while floodplain wetlands first increased and then decreased. Palustrine wetlands were reclaimed to cultivated land, but the proportion of reclamation is small. (3) Climate dominated wetland changes in the PRB. The changes in riverine and lacustrine wetlands were mainly affected by the warm-season average temperature, the change in palustrine wetlands was mainly related to the annual precipitation and the warm-season average temperature, and the change in floodplain wetlands was related to the warm-season precipitation. To achieve sustainable development, the government plays a guiding role and actively formulates and implements wetland protection policies, such as restricting or prohibiting grazing on wetlands, which play an important role in wetland protection and restoration.

Cropland expansion has become a prominent feature in developing countries and regions. A comprehensive clarification of the causes of cropland expansion is conducive to the adoption of appropriate actions to intervene and adapt to climate change, support rational land use, and balance ecosystem services. Using the Pumqu River Basin (PRB) in the Tibetan Plateau as the study area, we constructed a conceptual model that emphasizes the role of households and explored the causes of cropland expansion based on field survey data. Our results indicate that households’ perception of climate change, families’ non-agricultural income, the numbers of agricultural labor force, and the population pressure faced were the causes of cropland expansion in the PRB. Based on these findings, corresponding policy recommendations to limit the spontaneous cropland expansion behaviors of local households and reduce the ecological loss caused by cropland expansion are proposed.

Farmers are among the most vulnerable groups that need to adapt to climate change. Correct perception is a prerequisite for farmers to adopt adaptation strategies, which plays a crucial guiding role in the development of adaptation plans and the improvement of the security of livelihoods. This study aimed to compare farmers&rsquo, perceptions of temperature and precipitation change with meteorological data in two regions of the Tibetan Plateau, analyzed how irrigation affects farmers&rsquo, perceptions. Data were obtained from local meteorological stations and household questionnaires (N = 1005). The study found that, since 1987, the climate warming trend was significant (p &lt, 0.01), and the temperature increase was faster in winter. Precipitation had no significant change trend, but the seasonal variations indicated that the precipitation concentration period moved forward in the Pumqu River Basin and was delayed a month in the Yellow River-Huangshui River valley. The farmers&rsquo, perception of temperature change was consistent with meteorological data, but there was an obvious difference in precipitation perception between the two regions. We noticed that irrigation facilities played a mediating role on precipitation perception and farmers having access to irrigation facilities were more likely to perceive increased precipitation. Finally, this study suggested that meteorological data and farmers&rsquo, perceptions should be integrated when developing policies, rather than just considering actual climate trends. Simultaneously, while strengthening irrigation investment, the government should also pay attention to publicizing the consequences of climate change and improving farmers&rsquo, abilities of risk perception.

In recent decades, rapid economic growth and urbanization have driven significant livelihood transitions in rural China, which raised diverse climate and environmental impacts. This study investigated the impacts of such livelihood transitions on rural households’ carbon footprint at the Three Gorges Reservoir area in West China during the period of 1978–2016. By random sampling surveys, a total of 422 households were interviewed in September 2016 and March 2017. Our results show that: 1) The vast majority of households shifted their livelihood strategies from pure agriculture to industry and/or commerce. 2) Household incomes generally became more diverse and were increasingly generated from non-agricultural sectors. 3) Changes of the carbon footprint of the surveyed households indicated a significant transformation from net carbon emission (1494.789 tons) in 1978 to net carbon sequestration (2631.85 tons) in 2016, which was contributed mainly by general shifts of rural livelihood styles and government policies (e.g. the Grain for Green policy). Accordingly, to promote a low-carbon rural development at the study area and possibly beyond, we suggest political strategies to encourage voluntary and flexible farmland utilization, promote capital investments in agriculture mechanization, improve rural infrastructures, upscaling agricultural technical training, and continue and specialize the “Grain for Green” policy at suitable locations.

Although numerous studies have been conducted on the relationship between livelihood assets and strategies, only a few quantitative studies exist on the topic for anti-poverty policies with regard to the Tibetan Plateau. This study investigated 357 households in the upper reaches of the Dadu River watershed in the Eastern Tibetan Plateau, China, using the participatory rural appraisal method. Then, applying a multinomial logistic regression model, we quantitatively analyzed the relationship between livelihood assets and livelihood strategies, the findings of which have implications for local agricultural policy interventions. The preliminary results indicate that of the four classifications of livelihood strategies used in this study, the main livelihood strategy is that of the non-farming-dependent household type (i.e., Type III in our study) that combines agricultural and non-farm activities or practices self-employment for wages. There are significant differences in the livelihood assets owned by households with different livelihood strategies. Human, natural, and financial assets have significant influences on livelihood strategies, and the choice of livelihood strategy varies by livelihood assets. Further, with improvements in household labor capacity and cash income per capita, the livelihood strategies of non-agricultural and non-farming households may shift away from agriculture, while an increase in farmland cultivated per capita, cash income per capita, and household labor capacity may encourage households to adopt agriculture-dependent livelihood strategies. These findings contribute to research on livelihood and related development strategies and anti-poverty policies in not only the Eastern Tibetan Plateau but also other regions with similar livelihood strategies.

With the impacts of climate disruption becoming more evident there has been an increase in the uptake of climate change adaptation "toolkits" to assist local governments build community resilience and adapt to the impacts of climate change. There is increasing attention and call for practitioners to adopt proactive and participatory approaches to help in the adaptive response planning process. One such toolkit is the International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives (ICLEI) Asian Cities Climate Change Resilience Network (ACCRN) Process (IAP). This is a simple but rigorous toolkit developed to help local governments in Asian cities build resilience to the impacts of climate change. This paper outlines the application of the toolkit to determine its versatility in the rural context and was trialled in the Himalayan rural enclave of Ramgad in the Indian state of Uttarakhand. Given the differences between urban and rural environments, the outcomes highlighted the need for further investigation and analysis into the process to ensure that the methodology truly reflects the nature of rural systems and their level of vulnerability and adaptive capacity. Overall, the toolkit proved to be a simple but versatile toolkit to assess the vulnerability and adaptive capacity of communities in rural Himalaya. Over 40 resilience intervention strategies were developed for the Ramgad enclave and these were prioritized according to their technical, political, social and economic feasibility.

Massive out-migration of rural labor force brings both challenges and opportunities to crop-livestock integrated production system (crop-livestock system) in smallholder economy. Compared with previous researches that have paid major attention to the effect of labor migration on either crop production or livestock husbandry, this study considers the mediating role of crop production in predicting the effect of labor migration on livestock raising. Our econometric estimation based on a 2012 survey of 974 rural households in Chongqing, a mountainous region of China, showed the following. (1) The massive migration of rural labor force had led to significant increase in farmland abandonment and considerable changes in the pattern of livestock raising. (2) The livestock raising number per household began to differentiate, with the livestock system separating from the traditional crop-livestock system and becoming a specialized business. (3) In terms of the pathways through which rural labor migration exerts impact on livestock raising number, though the increased opportunity costs of rural labor greatly reduced farmers’ willingness to raise livestock, the decoupling of the crop-livestock system partly alleviated the declining trend in the livestock raising number because of the availability of household labor force freed from cropping via farmland abandonment. These findings have important policy implications for rural development and agricultural restructuring in mountainous areas of China, and provide references for other developing countries.

Given the background of the increasing opportunity cost of farming and the popularization of labour-saving technology, increased fragmentation has gradually become a key factor in the devaluation and abandonment of land assets. To systematically identify the costs of fragmentation, we use a series of indicators such as the number of plots, the Simpson index, the plot-homestead distance and the total minimum commuting time from the homestead to all plots to measure the extent of fragmentation. A translogcost function is developed and estimated using survey data from three periods, 2011, 2014 and 2017; the data include an effective sample of 1064 household-year observations involving 6599 plot-year observations in Chongqing, China. The extent of fragmentation in the mountains of southwest China is quite serious compared with that in other countries and regions. The Simpson index is 0.63, and on average, 6.06 mu (1 mu = 666.67 m2 or 1 mu = 1/15 ha) of cultivated land is distributed in 6.16 plots, while the total minimum commuting time from the homestead to all plots is approximately 45 min. An increase of one standard deviation in the number of plots, the Simpson index or total minimum commuting time would lead to cost increases of 7.1 %, 15.1 % and 12.2 %, respectively, if other conditions remain unchanged. The channel for the above result involves the changes in the cost share of inputs caused by fragmentation, which increase the labour cost share and reduce the machinery cost share. There is an inverted U-shaped relationship between farm scale and production cost with an inflection point at 47 mu; that is, costs begin to decrease when the scale exceeds 47 mu. However, the average farm scale is currently only 6.06 mu. In addition, production costs can be significantly reduced by renting-in land and implementing land consolidation. To reduce land system-induced costs in mountainous areas, the government should rationally consolidate land to achieve moderate-scale management, reduce the transaction costs of land transfers and popularize machinery suitable for complex terrain.

Human-wildlife conflict (HWC) is a growing global issue that seriously threatens agricultural production and livelihoods. Studying the relationship between wildlife damage, land use, and livelihood enables us to understand the dilemma facing current wildlife protection and ecological restoration policies and to amend existing policies effectively. Using participatory rural appraisal (PRA), quantitative analysis, and a Multilevel Logit regression model, this paper analyzed land use and livelihoods among 160 households subject to wild boar ( Sus scrofa ) damage in four villages within Youyang County in the poor mountainous areas of Chongqing, China. The findings showed the following: (i) wild boars in Youyang County were responsible for large-scale crop and property damage; (ii) cultivated land abandonment has become a significant trend in land use, and the most important perceived driver for abandoning farmland is the land plot's vulnerability to wild boar damage; (iii) when protecting cultivated land plots, households tend to protect those plots that are close to the road, have larger land area, and have a slight or abrupt slope; however, households with more members working in non-farm labor, more female agricultural workers, and/or higher non-farm income are more inclined to abandon protection of their plots. This paper discusses seven main measures that are frequently adopted by farmers to protect their crops and livestock and are perceived by these farmers as the most effective and sensible countermeasures.

Currently, there is limited literature dealing with the length of stay of circular migrants in urban areas (LSCMU), although many studies have discussed the phenomenon of migration and the determinants of migration. This study attempts to fill that gap using survey data from the mountainous areas of Chongqing, Southwest China. From a comparative perspective, this study divided workers into two groups (a young group aged between 16 and 35 years and an old group aged between 36 and 65 years). The average LSCMU values for the young and old groups were 225 days and 174 days, respectively. Two multi-regression models were used to estimate the determinants of LSCMU in the two groups. The results showed that LSCMU was closely related to individual factors in both groups, including gender, age and job training. Family and community factors, including household size, arable land per capita and the distance from market, had much weaker effects on the dependent variable, especially in the older group. It was noticeable that job training had significant positive effects on LSCMU in both groups; these findings have special implications for the urbanization process in China.

Although there has been rapid rural-urban migration in rural China since the 1980s, the total grain production of China saw a continuous increase. As of today, the relationship between labor migration and grain output growth remains partial and contradictory. The main aim of this empirical study is to examine some specific measures adopted by peasants to deal with labor shortage and maintain grain output growth. Using tracking survey, participatory rural appraisal methods, and land plot investigation, we investigate 274 households and 1405 arable land plots in four villages in two stages in Jinchuan county, southwestern China. The results show that continuous emigration of labor from the four villages caused the abandonment of a small amount of land, decreased labor intensity, and reduced multiple cropping index, shifting from “corn-wheat” multiple cropping pattern to the “corn” cropping pattern, which means labor shortage in some households. At the same time, owing to surplus labor in the villages, the peasants utilize a series of means to offset the negative impacts of labor migration on grain output, such as cropland transfer, labor exchange in the busy seasons, and the substitution of capital and technology for labor. The econometric analysis also shows that labor migration boosts grain production. This study provides a reasonable explanation of grain output growth under rural-urban migration.

Historical trends show that the total area of agricultural land in Nepal has changed markedly over time, but few studies have addressed the causative drivers underlying this change. Evaluating the perceptions of farmers is an effective tool for addressing this issue because it reflects the full range of drivers associated with changes in land use. This study utilizes historical agricultural area, population, and climate data for 1910-2010, combined with a series of applied household surveys and focus group discussions to assess farmers' perceptions of these changes and identify the major drivers. The paired t-test was employed to measure differences between various groups of drivers. The total area of agricultural land in Nepal has expanded rapidly since 1910, more intensively in the southern (Tarai) and central (Hill) ecological regions of the country, and has decreased slightly near large cities in recent decades. Farmers' perceptions show that socioeconomic variables were considered to be the crucial drivers of changes in agricultural land use. The three other major drivers were grouped as: neighborhood, climate-topography, and policy drivers. In particular, farmers pointed to the high level of population growth (93.96%) as the main factor underlying the changes, and the majority of drivers are associated with this variable. Access to roads (77.36%), urbanization (33.77%), government policies (23.58%), and remittance impact (16.79%) are other notable triggering variables. The paired t-test results equating variables from different groups of drivers and ecological regions indicate varied significance (p-values range from 0.004 to 0.983). Our analysis confirms that the synergy between social and natural observations can be integrated to obtain research findings that identify scientific and social issues. The interplay between the drivers should be emphasized in developing plans for sustainable agricultural land use management.