《Analysis of arable land loss and its impact on rural sustainability in Southern》.pdf

Journal of Environmental Management 91 (2010) 646–653 Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Journal of Environmental Management journal homepage: www.els /locate/jenvman Analysis of arable land loss and its impact on rural sustainability in Southern Jiangsu Province of China Y.S. Liu a, *, J.Y. Wang a, b, H.L. Long a,1 a Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research (IGSNRR), Chinese Academy of Sciences, 11A, Datun Road, Chaoyang District, Beijing 100101, China b Graduate University of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t Article history: Rapid urbanization and industrialization in southern Jiangsu Province have consumed a huge amount of Received 23 January 2009 arable land. Through comparative analysis of land cover maps derived from TM images in 1990, 2000 and Received in revised form 2006, we identified the trend of arable land loss. It is found that most arable land is lost to urbanization 16 September 2009 and rural settlements development. Urban settlements, rural settlements, and industrial park-mine- Accepted 21 September 2009 Available online 22 October 2009 transport land increased, respectively, by 87 997 ha (174.65%), 81 041 ha (104.52%), and 12 692 ha (397.99%) from 1990 to 2006. Most of the source (e.g., change from) land covers are rice paddy fields and dryland. These two covers contributed to newly urbanized