Changes in cropland (IMAGE)
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Changes in cropland pattern, area and quality across China. (A) Cropland change across China during 1990-2000. (B) Cropland change across China during 2000-2015. (C) Cropland quality levels across China. (D) Statistics of the gain, loss, and net change of croplands. Rapid urbanization and industrialization encroach on the traditional high-quality cropland in Southeast (SE), Southwest (SW), and North (N) China, while the large-scale reclamation of marginal lands happens in Northeast (NE) and Northwest (NW) China. Nevertheless, cropland redistribution to marginal lands resulted in the overall decline of cropland qualities in China during 1990-2015. Cropland area in China was 138.04×106 ha in 1990 and peak in 2000 with a total area of 141.41×106 ha. Since 2000, the total cropland area, 139.47×106 ha in 2015, has showed small variations. Urbanization alone, mainly in SE, SW, and N China, caused an 11.2 ×106 ha reduction of high-quality croplands during 1990-2015, while the newly reclaimed lands were primarily located in NE and NW China (12.67×106 ha). Therefore, cropland redistribution caused an increase of moderate and poor croplands from 42.3% (1990) to 48.9% (2015) across China, leading to a downward trend of cropland qualities.
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