The Scale of Constructing Mountainous Cities in Yunnan Province based on “Benchmark” Farmlands

In 2011, Yunnan provincial committee and government proposed the strat- egy of constructing mountainous cities in order to protect farmlands and guarantee crop safety, which makes full use of hills and gentle-slopes and transforms land use pattern. However, social and economic development performs unevenly in Yun- nan, supplemented by varied geographical conditions, so that constructing mountain- ous cities should proceed as per local conditions. The research proposed the con- trol of constructing mountainous cities provided crop safety under the principle of farmland protection and measured the quantities of demanded construction lands ac- cording to science of population prediction and ekistics, based on which the control scales of constructing mountainous cities were determined by multiplying basic farm- land coefficient and the area of newly increased construction lands. The research is of significance for guiding the construction of mountainous cities and avoiding the occupation of construction lands on farmlands.

Land system reform should protect farmers' interests

|Editorial Note|Land has become an issue of increasing social concern as demand continues to surge in the midst of economic development,urbanization and industrialization.The crux of the issue is the land regime. China has a unique dualistic land regime under which the land market has not been well developed.Based on a review and commentary of the existing land polices,this article elaborates on the deficiencies inherent in China’s dualistic land rights system and land market and offers policy recommendations for promoting land system reform and market development.This study will help us gain an in-depth understanding of the problems in China’s land regime.

Prediction and Protection of Cultivated Land in China

[Objectives]To protect cultivated land and ensure national food security and to forecast the cultivated land area of China and the provinces(cities)in 2030,2035 and 2050.[Methods]Based on the cultivated land area data of the whole country and provinces(autonomous regions and municipalities)from 2009 to 2017,the OLS model is used to forecast the cultivated land area of China and the provinces(cities)in 2030,2035 and 2050.[Results]The results show that the predicted area of cultivated land in 2030,2035 and 2050 is 134.0886,133.7856 and 132.8764 million ha,respectively,showing an obvious decreasing trend.The national cultivated land scale predicted in this paper can meet the requirements of the 2030 national cultivated land retention target set in the National Land Planning Outline(2016-2030).However,in the total area of existing cultivated land,there is still a certain area of sloping cultivated land(accounting for about 4%of the total cultivated land area,it is appropriate to gradually return farmland to forest).At the same time,nearly 20%of the cultivated land has been polluted,and the low-quality cultivated land accounts for about 22%of the total cultivated land.[Conclusions]The situation of cultivated land protection in the whole country is not rosy.For this reason,some measures and suggestions are put forward:strengthening land consolidation,striving to improve the quality of cultivated land,and appropriately increasing new cultivated land;strengthening the protection of cultivated land resources and strictly controlling the reduction of cultivated land.

Analysis of Temporal and Spatial Changes of Cultivated Land in Karst Areas of Southwest Guangxi Based on Landscape Pattern Indices

Affected by topographical conditions,the distribution of cultivated land in karst areas is relatively fragmented.More effective cultivated land protection measures can be taken in a targeted manner by grasping the spatial and temporal distribution characteristics of regional cultivated land.In this study,with the cultivated land of four county-level administrative regions(Debao County,Jingxi City,Daxin County,and Tiancheng County)in typical karst landform areas in southwestern Guangxi as the research object,combining with the spatial analysis function of the GIS software platform,the spatial distribution characteristics and temporal and spatial changes of cultivated land in the study area were investigated from 2009 to 2020 using the quantitative analysis method of landscape pattern indices,revealing the main problems of cultivated land utilization,and the multi-dimensional management ideas of cultivated land protection in karst areas under the background of rural revitalization strategy were proposed.

Design of Trinity Framework for Cultivated Land Protection

Starting with the goals and tasks of quantity,quality and ecological protection in different scales,this paper constructs a"trinity"framework of cultivated land protection system,and puts forward the key points of cultivated land protection in different scales.Finally,a preliminary evaluation is made on the quantity,quality and ecological protection of cultivated land on a macro scale in China.

Early Warning of Cultivated Land Quality Based on Multiple Indicators

At present,the quality protection and early warning of cultivated land in China are actually based on the increase and decrease of the quantity of cultivated land and the change of its quality.The early warning of cultivated land quality based on this is easy to cause the problem of missing and wrong alarm.Based on the quality and productivity change of regional cultivated land,early warning on the regional cultivated land quality is conducted in this study respectively,and the results of the two early warning are compared.Moreover,a multi-indicator cultivated land quality early warning based on the quality change,productivity change and auxiliary indicators is proposed.The results show that:early warning of cultivated land quality based on quality and productivity change of cultivated land has certain limitations.Based on multi-indicator early warning,the number of counties with heavy,medium and light warnings in Henan Province is 52,8 and 11 respectively.The multi-indicator early warning result of cultivated land quality is more accurate,which can provide a basis for cultivated land protection and management assessment,and has great application value.

Protecting Land and Resources

LAND is a resource vital to life and production. China Today recently visited Wang Dacao, head of the Liaoning Provincial Department of Land and Resources. We asked him how the province protects and utilizes its land and resources for the purposes of sustainable development and benefit of later generations.Rich ResourcesThe land and sea within the boundaries of Liaoning Province, northeastern

President Jiang Zemin on Land Protection

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Video-based construction vehicles detection and its application in intelligent monitoring system

While vehicle detection on highways has been reported before, to the best of our knowledge, intelligent monitoring system that aims at detecting hydraulic excavators and dump trucks on state-owned land has not been explored thoroughly yet. In this paper, we present an automatic, video-based algorithm for detecting hydraulic excavators and dump trucks. Derived from lessons learned from video processing, we proposed methods for foreground detection based on an improved frame difference algorithm, and then detected hydraulic excavators and dump trucks in the respective region of interest. From our analysis, we proposed methods based on inverse valley feature of mechanical arm and spatial-temporal reasoning for hydraulic excavator detection. In addition, we explored dump truck detection strategies that combine structured component projection with the spatial relationship. Experiments on real-monitoring sites demonstrated the promising performance of our system.

Impact of farmer households＇ livelihood assets on their options of economic compensation patterns for cultivated land protection

With rapid urbanization and the socio-economic transformation, cultivated land protection has gradually become a major concern in China. The economic compensation plays a crucial role in promoting cultivated land protection and improving the utilization ratio of cultivated land. Farmer household＇s satisfaction has a great influence on the effectiveness of compensation. Therefore, households＇ willingness to select the economic compensation pattern for cultivated land protection has been considered and re-examined. By employing Participatory Rural Appraisal method （PRA）, 3 villages and 392 households were investigated and sampled in mesa and hilly areas of Chongqing. Then a quantitative analysis framework of household livelihood hexagon has been developed to quantify the livelihood assets of differ- ent farmer households. Finally, the Gray Relation Model and Probit Regression Model have been employed to explore the coupling relationship between the household livelihood assets and their compensation pattern options. The results show that there are both qualitative and spatial heterogeneity in household livelihood assets. We found that the inequality of livelihood assets is evident for five household types. There is a spatial trend that the higher the eleva- tion, the less livelihood assets are. In addition, their options of economic compensation pat- tern vary from Chengdu Pattern to Foshan Pattern due to their difference in livelihood assets and difference in location. In detail, there is a coupling relationship between household live- lihood assets and their compensation pattern; negative correlation is observed between natural assets value and household pattern options, while the other livelihood assets have positive impacts on compensation pattern in varying degrees, which from the top are psy- chological assets, human assets, physical assets, financial assets, and social assets respec- tively. A conceptual compensation pattern system has been designed to meet the demands for farmer households mainly according to their shortage in livelihood assets. In addition, compensation method, compensation standard, the basis of compensation and the source of compensation funds have been proposed accordingly.

Assessment of multifunctional landscapes dynamics in the mountainous basin of the Mo River （Togo, West Africa）

In this study, historical landscape dynamics were investigated to（i） map the land use/cover types for the years 1972, 1987, 2000 and 2014;（ii） determine the types and processes of landscape dynamics; and（iii） assess the landscape fragmentation and habitat loss over time. Supervised classification of multi-temporal Landsat images was used through a pixel-based approach. Post–classification methods included systematic and random change detection, trajectories analysis and landscape fragmentation assessment. The overall accuracies（and Kappa statistics） were of 68.86%（0.63）, 91.32%（0.79）, 90.66%（0.88） and 91.88%（0.89） for 1972, 1987, 2000 and 2014, respectively. The spatio-temporal analyses indicated that forests, woodlands and savannahs dominated the landscapes during the four dates, though constant areal decreases were observed. The most important dynamic process was the decline of woodlands with an average annual net loss rate of –2%. Meanwhile, the most important land transformation occurred during the transition 2000–2014, due to anthropogenic pressures. Though the most important loss of vegetation greenness occurred in the unprotected areas, the overall analyses of change indicated a declining trend of land cover quality and an increasing landscape fragmentation. Sustainable conservation strategies should be promoted while focusing restoration attention on degraded lands and fragmented ecosystems in order to support rural livelihood and biodiversity conservation.

Drivers of farmers’behavior toward compensation scheme for cultivated land protection in chengdu pilot area,China

Studying farmers’behavior affected by economic incentive is necessary to promote positive behavior among farmers toward protecting the quantity,quality,and ecological environment of cultivated land.In this study,we investigated the current situation regarding economic incentive policies for cultivated land protection,which has attracted the attention of Chinese government.Then,we focused on the earliest pilot scheme(i.e.,Cultivated Land Protection Fund,CLPF)implemented in the west of China since 2008 to empirically analyze farmers’behavior.Statistical analysis and path analysis methods were applied,with data collected from 296 questionnaires.Our results showed that positive actions,including the enhancement of initiatives to protect cultivated land,the improvement of ecological environment of cultivated land,and the investment in agricultural infrastructure,have been adopted by farmers since the implementation of the CLPF.Furthermore,gender,education level,labor force size,cultivated land area,migration out of traditional farming areas,average annual household income,and farmers’knowledge of the policy impacted significantly on farmers’behavior.On the premise of comprehensive consideration of the diversity of farmers’livelihoods,new communication technologies and sufficient funds,we suggested that a long-term and sustainable project should be established at the national level to effectively compensate farmers.

Scenario Prediction and Analysis of Urban Growth Using SLEUTH Model

Scenario prediction was introduced to better understand urban dynamics and to support urban planning. Taking the Dongguan central urban area of the Pearl River Delta, China as an example, three urban development scenarios, historical trend (HT) scenario, forest protection (FP) scenario, and growth restriction (GR) scenario, were designed and transplanted into the SLEUTH model through the parameter self-modification method. The quantitative analysis results showed that the urban area would expand continuously from 2003 to 2030 under the HT scenario. More land resources would be saved under the GR scenario than FP scenario. Furthermore, the urban growth under the HT and FP scenarios would come to a steady state by 2020, while this deadline of the GR scenario would be postponed to 2025. The spatial pattern analysis using five spatial metrics, class area, number of patches, largest patch index, edge density, and contagion index, showed that under all the scenarios, the urban patches would become bigger and the form would become more compact, and the urban form under the GR scenario would be the smallest and most heterogeneous. These demonstrated that the GR scenario was more effective in meeting the goal of land protection and sustainable development for the study area.