Spatiotemporal characteristics and influencing factors of landscape fragmentation of cultivated land in China

Abstract: Cultivated land fragmentation has been widely known as one of the key limiting factors for cultivated land use efficiency, as well as agricultural modernization and transformation in China. Since 2014, much effort has been made to encourage the transfer of land management rights for the less cultivated land fragmentation, even for the cultivated land at a moderate scale. Most studies have also been conducted at the local or regional scales. However, only a few studies are focused on the fine-grained changes in cultivated land fragmentation from a national perspective. It is still lacking in the implementation effect of land management right transfer policy on the cultivated land fragmentation. In this study, a systematic analysis was made of the temporal and spatial variation characteristics of China's cultivated land fragmentation from 1990 to 2020. The influencing factors were also identified near the implementation of the land transfer policy (2008-2020). The long-term land use data was selected to supplement the landscape pattern index, trend analysis, and dynamic panel model. The cultivated land fragmentation was roughly divided into ownership fragmentation and landscape fragmentation, in terms of connotation. The landscape fragmentation of cultivated land (CLF) was then used in this case. The results showed that: 1) China's CLF presented a distribution pattern of low in the plain and basin areas, and high in the mountainous and plateau areas. Specifically, the CLF was relatively low in the Northeast Plain, the Huang-Huai-Hai Plain, the Middle and Lower Reaches of the Yangtze River Plain, as well as the Sichuan Basin, Junggar and Tarim Basin; while the cultivated land in the transition zone of the second and third-level topographic steps, as well as the Loess Plateau, Yunnan-Guizhou Plateau, and the Southeastern Hills, was relatively fragmented. 2) China's CLF generally showed a changing trend of continuous-improved-fluctuating fragmentation from 1990 to 2020. Specifically, the overall cultivated land showed a trend of landscape fragmentation from 2004 to 2013. More than 70% of the counties showed a significant increase in the PD/LSI or a significant decrease in the AI, which were concentrated in the Huang-Huai-Hai Plain, the Middle and Lower Reaches of the Yangtze River Plain, the Sichuan Basin, and the Guangdong-Guangzhou region. However, 70% of the provinces improved the landscape fragmentation of cultivated land from 2014 to 2020. Spatially, the counties with the improved CLF (that is, the counties with the significantly reduced PD and LSI, but increased AI) were mainly located in the transition zone of the second and third-level topographic steps, the Loess Plateau, northwest Xinjiang, and the Guangdong-Guangzhou region. 3) The land transfer policy significantly reduced the CLF. In addition, some important factors were the regional land use change, non-grained utilization of cultivated land, slope, and irrigation conditions. The spatial-temporal variation characteristics of CLF in China on a nationwide scale revealed the impact of land transfer policies and other factors on the CLF. The finding can provide a new research paradigm for the changes in the regional CLF and different land use/ecosystem types.