GIS-based assessment of land-agroforestry potentiality of Jharkhand State, India

Scaling-up agroforestry area in various forms is a scientific path towards achieving various sustainable development goals(SDGs),especially improving livelihood,reducing poverty,conserving environment and biodiversity,and transforming climate change.In this study,the effort was made to investigate the land potentiality for agroforestry at the district level in Jharkhand State,India by applying geographic information system(GIS)modeling technology using climate(temperature and precipitation),topography(slope and elevation),ecology(percent tree cover and normalized difference vegetation index(NDVI)),and social economics(poverty rate and tribal dominance)factors.The results revealed that six districts of Jharkhand State had agroforestry potential greater than 60.00%.The highest agroforestry suitability was found in Simdega District(78.20%),followed by Pakur(76.25%),West Singhbhum(72.70%),Dumka(68.84%),Sahibganj(64.63%),and Godda(63.43%)districts.Additionally,we identified 513 out of 32,620 villages of Jharkhand State potentially suitable(agroforestry suitability≥80.00%)for agroforestry with the objective of life improvement among marginalized society.Under the outside forest area,8.58%of the total geographical land of Jharkhand State was wasteland,much of which was found suitable for agroforestry practices.The agroforestry setups in those wastelands can absorb 637 t carbon annually in long run and can provide direct economic benefits to the locals besides additional income for carbon emission reduction.This study concluded that Jharkhand State has plenty of high potential land for agroforestry,and adoption of agroforestry at the village level must be given high priority.This study could guide the nodal authorities to prepare appropriate strategies for scaling the tree cover in agroforestry systems in village-level landscape planning which needs policy attention and investment for achieving 9 out of the 17 SDGs.

Evaluation of Potential Land Productivity in Wulushan, West China

The general situation of the total land resources in Wulushan, West China was studied by field investigations with the aid of a GIS software, called Region Manager. The current status of land use in Wulushan is described. The potential land productivity was evaluated by a fuzzy comprehensive method, We take each plot as a basic unit of evaluation on the basis of an index system of land resources in Wulushan which was developed from the investigation data. Evaluation of potential land productivity is the key part of land management. A guideline is presented in this paper for a proper utilization of the land resources and to develop the productive capacity of the land.

The Massive Expansion and Spatial Transformation of Potentially Contaminated Land Across China in 1990–2020 Observed from Remote Sensing and Big-data

Identifying and monitoring the spatiotemporal patterns of potentially contaminated land(PCL) in China is a key concern of ecological governance. However, the dynamics of PCL’s expansion remain unclear nationwide. Integrating high-resolution remote sensing images, a land-use/cover change database, crawler data from websites, and other multisource data, we produced a new dataset of China’s PCL in 1990, 2000, 2010, and 2020 using data fusion technology. Then we analyzed the spatiotemporal patterns of China’s PCL from 1990 to 2020. Our study shows that the acquired vector dataset of China’s PCL is of high quality and reliability, with an overall accuracy of 93.21%. The area of China’s PCL has kept growing for the past 30 years, and the growth rate was especially rapid during2000–2010, 2.32 and 6.13 times as rapid as that during 1990–2000 and 2010–2020, respectively. PCL has also been trending toward higher aggregation over markedly enlarged areas and has transferred progressively from north and southeast of China to northwest and southwest of China and Qinghai-Tibet Plateau. The patterns of China’s PCL have been driven by the joint factors of policies, mineral resources, economy, and others, among which policies and the economy have contributed more prominently to the long-term transition.Our study promotes the access to high-quality spatial data of PCL to facilitate environmental governance of mine wastes, pollution and land management.

Potential of land consolidation of hollowed villages under different urbanization scenarios in China

There exists great potential of rural land consolidation in China due to the aggra- vated hollowed villages against the background of rapid rural-urban transformation. The pa- per aims to investigate the potential of rural land consolidation within four urbanization sce- narios： Complete urbanization, Semi-urbanization, Urbanization in batches and prospective urbanization in 2020. Research findings show that, （1） the potentials of rural land consolida- tion in complete and semi-urbanization are 809.89×104 hm2 and 699.19×104 hm2 respectively while rural consolidation rates are 50.70% and 43.77%. As for the urbanization in batches and urbanization in 2020, the potentials are 757.89×104 hm2 and 992.16×104 hm2. （2） Beside Tibet and Ningxia, rural consolidation rates in most provinces are between 40% and 60%, and the land increase rates are between 3% and 12%. Significant correlation between potential of rural land consolidation and the degree of hollowed villages is also found. （3） Evident differ- ences of potential of rural land consolidation exist across provinces. Rural consolidation rates in the East and Central provinces are higher than that in the West provinces. Villages in the developed areas have higher consolidation rates than those in the less developed areas, and villages in the plain areas tend to have higher consolidation rates than those in the moun- tainous areas.