ABSTRACT
Cropland redistribution to marginal land has been reported worldwide; however, the resulting impacts on environmental sustainability have not been investigated sufficiently. Here we investigated the environmental impacts of cropland redistribution in China. As a result of urbanization-induced loss of high-quality croplands in south China (â¼8.5 t ha-1), croplands expanded to marginal lands in northeast (â¼4.5 t ha-1) and northwest China (â¼2.9 t ha-1) during 1990-2015 to pursue food security. However, the reclamation in these low-yield and ecologically vulnerable zones considerably undermined local environmental sustainability, for example increasing wind erosion (+3.47%), irrigation water consumption (+34.42%), fertilizer use (+20.02%) and decreasing natural habitats (-3.11%). Forecasts show that further reclamation in marginal lands per current policies would exacerbate environmental costs by 2050. The future cropland security risk will be remarkably intensified because of the conflict between food production and environmental sustainability. Our research suggests that globally emerging reclamation of marginal lands should be restricted and crop yield boost should be encouraged for both food security and environmental benefits.
ABSTRACT
The recent acute evolution of cropland structure in Cold China could lead to rapid rice paddy expansion, potentially altering land-surface thermal processes and influencing climate. To address the issue, this study investigated the changes in cropland type, land-surface temperature (LST) and heat fluxes in the agricultural region of Cold China during 2000-2015 based on time-series of land-use data and MODIS LST product, using the split-window algorithms (SWA) model and the pixel component arranging and component algorithm (PCACA). The investigation revealed large-scale land transformation from rain-fed farmland to paddy field in Cold China during 2000-2015. Compared to the rain-fed farmland, lower LST was observed in paddy field throughout crop growing seasons, with the highest LST threshold found in June (7.17 ± 1.05 °C) and the lowest value found in August (1.04 ± 0.35 °C). The cooling effect of paddy-field ranged from 0.59 ± 0.06 °C, 0.77 ± 0.07 °C, and 1.08 ± 0.08 °C for the low-, medium-, and high-density paddies, respectively. Compared to other months, stronger cooling effect was found in May and June. Further analysis showed the conversion of a rain-fed farmland to paddy field reduced the sensible heat flux and soil heat flux by 52.94 W/m2 and 15.26 W/m2, respectively, while increased the latent heat flux and net radiation by 115.66 W/m2 and 47.34 W/m2, respectively. The findings from this study indicated the changes in cropland structure and management regime (e.g., irrigation) could profoundly modify land-surface thermal processes and local/regional climate, interfering the signals from global warming. Therefore, instrumental climate data that collected from areas experienced large-scale conversion between rain-fed and paddy farmland should be carefully screened and corrected to prevent land-use induced biases.
ABSTRACT
On the background of global climate change, agriculture in North China has been experiencing substantial modifications to adapt to the ongoing regional warming. One of the most significant land use change is the conversation from upland cropland to paddy cropland, which is characterized by the dramatic changes of agricultural landscape pattern. In this study, we generated land use maps in Fujin City in 2000 and 2013 by using Landsat TM imagery, and analyzed the landscape pattern changes (cropland composite, special distribution, and patch characteristics, etc.) of croplands by using landscape indices and empirical approach. The results indicated a rapid cropland increase from 512400 hm2(reclamation ratio 60.4%) in 2000 to 699300 hm2(reclamation 82.4%) in 2013, especially, the paddy cropland proportion in the total cropland increased from 6.7% to more than half (54.1%) , that is, the agricultural land use mode had changed from the initial stage of paddy agriculture to the intermediate stage. The reclamation area and common agricultural area showed different paddy agriculture development characteristics: in 2000, the paddy field ratios in the common agricultural area and reclamation area were similar (5.5% and 8.3% respectively); however, in 2013, the paddy field ratio in the common agricultural area (33.6%) was significantly lower than that in reclamation area (83.4%). In 2000, the total number of cropland patches was 2311 in the study, including 1010 patches from the common agricultural area and 1301 patches from the reclamation area. The coefficient of variation (CV) , and shape index (SI) of cropland patches in upland cropland were always higher than in paddy cropland. Upland cropland had larger mean patch size with the plaque area index above 60% and higher connectivity. The patch density of upland cropland was lower than that of paddy cropland. In the conversions to the intermediate and later stages of paddy agriculture, the patch number of cropland increased rapidly with different rates in upland and paddy croplands. The CV of paddy cropland patches increased while fluctuated in upland cropland. The SI of paddy cropland increased first and then decreased, while that of upland cropland decreased continuously. The mean patch sizes of paddy and upland croplands increased and decreased respectively. The patch density increased in upland cropland while decreased in paddy cropland. The connectivity of upland cropland decreased while that of paddy cropland increased. The staggered degree of both cropland types was enhanced from 2000 to 2013. In general, the paddy agriculture was becoming the dominated agricultural land use mode in the study area while the convesions had different rates in two administrative regions (reclamation and common agricultural areas).
