Variation of cultivated land and the driving forces in Wenchuan County in the upstream of Min River

Taking Wenchuan County in the upstream of Min River as a case, the cultivated land use change and the driving forces were explored using the principal component analysis through SPSS software. The results show that the size of cultivated land area changes with the slow fluctuation in Wenchuan county during the last decade. The driving forces were determined through PCA (principal components analyse) between cultivated land and related socio-economic factors. The policies are the principal driving force which leads to the change of cultivated land in the study area, the increase of population is the second, and the economy increasing is the third. Some suggestions are proposed for the rational use of the cultivated land to accelerate the sustainable development based on the cultivated land and its driving forces.