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| DRIVING FORCES OF CULTIVATED LAND CHANGE IN TRANSITIONAL AREA BETWEEN PASTORAL AND AGRICULTURAL——A Case of Cultivated Land Change of Guyuan County in the Last 15 Years |
| MA Li1, TANG Yi1,2,3, NIU Dong-yu1 |
1. College of Resources & Environment and Tourism, Capital Normal University, Beijing 100037, China;
2. Institute of Applied Ecology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shenyang 110016, China;
3. Graduate University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100039, China |
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Abstract Driving force is one of the most important fields in study about LUCC. As the basis of PSR paradigm, the deep understanding of driving forces can make us know LUCC well. Although there are a series of studies about driving forces by using statistics methods, these methods can not yet explain causes and effects clearly. So a new method which can clearly give a geographical explanation is needed. The authors of this paper build a model based on differential calculus. According to the great work of mathematicians, a equation of linear regression is gotten, and revised by weighted least square method (WLS). WLS does not consider the effects between driving forces, which can make the result different. So path analysis is used in this study. Path analysis can distinguish the effects between driving forces and change of cultivated land. The authors believe that path analysis is good for discovering the multifunction of driving forces of arable land change. The method is compared with weighted least square method (WLS), the result shows that path analysis has its advantage in situation when many factors have complex relationships.
Driving forces can be taken into account as nature, economy, population, policy, technology and sense of worth. Every factor needs a suitable index. According to survey and data, rainfall stands for nature, rural per capita net income stands for economy, amount of people stands for population, earnings of policy stands for policy, energy consumption per unit of output value stands for technology, sense of worth is not considered in this study.The authors selected Guyuan county as a research subject and hoped the research could support the strategic decision. Pastoral and agricultural ecotone like Guyuan county is the hotspot in geography. Its frangibility and sensibility are two reasons why so many people consider it as an ideal research region. The results show that economic factor and technological factor are the two big roles changing acreage of arable land. And the more increases of the burden peasant bore, the more arable lands peasant will cultivate to compeasate their losses. Because labor force is enough in this county, the peasant does not count the cost of labor force.With the increasing of the farmers' pure income, the area of the arable land will get smaller and smaller, so authors can conclude that the development of economy is consonant with protecting the environment.
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Received: 21 June 2008
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2008, Vol. 23 
