Study On Cultivated Land Changes And Its Driving Forces In Taiyuan

As we all know that land is all things, furthermore cultivated land is a precious part of land. While cultivated land is also guaranteed of food production and the most basic means of production. But along with the economic development and accelerated urbanization, China's cultivated land resources are facing the current situation that everyone has less cultivated land resources and the downward trend of cultivated land does not relieve. At the same time the relations between man and land are deteriorating day by day. Therefore researching cultivated land use changes trend and its driving forces in Taiyuan City can slow down the further reduction in cultivated land resources and coordinate the relationship between economic development and cultivated land protection We believe that this is a very positive thing.This paper was divided into five chapters. The first chapter was an introduction. It described the research background, significance and land use /land cover change research abroad and in China. At the same time it also described current situation of cultivated land change and driving factors research abroad and in China. By means of learning from previous research, it proposed the content and methods of research. Chapters from the second one to the fourth were the main parts of the full text. On the base of the natural overview, socio-economic profiles and land use at present, paper analyzed the dynamic change of cultivated land resources and the main driving factors from 1977 to 2008. The 5th chapter made a conclusion of the full text. It not only analyzed the advancements and shortcomings, but also forecasted the prospects. The main conclusions were as follows:(1) Cultivated land and per capita arable land of Taiyuan decreased on the whole from 1997 to 2008. There were three stages. In the first stage, from 1997 to 2001, the trend of cultivated land change had small fluctuations. The decline of cultivated land was faster in the second stage from 2002 to 2006. In the third stage reduction of arable land had slowed down and it had a slight increase from 2007 to 2008. In addition, after calculation we knew that the cultivated land use changed very quickly in the study period. Because of different natural conditions and economic development in the different regions of Taiyuan, cultivated land resources showed differently. Besides, although the overall trend was still recession, the adjustment from the extensive use to the intensive use had begun by studying the cultivated land reclamation rate and multiple crop indexes.(2) According to the different causes, the driving factors of land use change were divided into natural and socio-economic factors. Natural factors were included climate, landform, hydrology, soil and nature disasters. As Taiyuan was a relatively small area, Socio-economic factors were the major driving factors in relatively stable natural conditions and at the shorter time scale. Socio-economic driving factors were studied through principal component analysis and multiple linear regression models. The results showed that the main driving factors which affected cultivated land use change were social development, economic development, population factors, and the adjustment of agricultural structure.