Landslides and Cropland Abandonment in China’s Mountainous Areas: Spatial Distribution, Empirical Analysis and Policy Implications

Abstract

Cropland, as the largest land use type in the human landscape, contributes to not only biodiversity but also global food security. However, cropland abandonment not only is harmful to agricultural cultural landscapes but also threatens food security. Prior studies have suggested that changes in the social environment drive farmers to abandon cropland. In contrast, this study reveals that factors of the natural environment (e.g., landslides) have steadily and significantly affected cropland abandonment after controlling the factors of the social environment. More specifically, based on the survey data of a large sample of 4850 mountainous households in 24 provinces of China and following the theoretical framework of “environment → land use”, this study quantitatively identified the impacts of landslides on cropland abandonment in mountainous areas using the Probit and Tobit models. The results show that: (1) There is a similar spatial agglomeration trend between landslides and cropland abandonment. Namely, an area that has a high incidence of landslides also has a high incidence of cropland abandonment. (2) There is a significant and positive correlation between landslides and cropland abandonment. Namely, compared with peasants who have not suffered from landslides, the probability that peasants suffering from landslides will abandon cropland and the area abandoned increase by 6.8% and 0.064 mu, respectively. (3) Elderly farmers (over 64 years old) and the development of urbanization help curb cropland abandonment in the mountains. The results of this study may provide reference for the government to implement effective policies for managing landslides and revitalizing unused cropland resources.

Power of Agricultural Credit in Farmland Abandonment: Evidence from Rural China

“…However, in recent years, farmland abandonment has also occurred in developing countries [8][9][10]. For example, in China, the world's largest developing country, some 12-15% of rural farmland was abandoned between 2013 and 2015 [11][12][13]. In addition, China is becoming rapidly urbanized, such that the phenomenon of farmland abandonment in rural China may become more common in the future.…”

Relationships between Land Management Scale and Livelihood Strategy Selection of Rural Households in China from the Perspective of Family Life Cycle

“…On the basis of this possibility, the present study used type IV Tobit models to re-estimate the models. The selection of the instrumental variables was based on the methodology described by [6,8,16,17,56,57], and the average land management scale of other rural households in the same village (other than this rural household) was taken as the land management scale of this rural household to obtain the instrumental variables.…”

“…Therefore, moderate land scale management has a long way to go [14,15]. Because of massive labor migration, many hilly rural areas lack a labor force, leading to considerable land abandonment [16,17].Rural households are micro-organizational systems composed of different family members, and the decision-making behaviors of these households are deeply influenced by the characteristics of family resource endowments [18][19][20][21][22]. Affected by special labor migration characteristics and land-use patterns, the livelihood capital portfolio and livelihood strategy selection of rural households show different characteristics [23][24][25].…”

“…Therefore, moderate land scale management has a long way to go [14,15]. Because of massive labor migration, many hilly rural areas lack a labor force, leading to considerable land abandonment [16,17].…”

The Impact of Rural Labor Migration on Elderly Health from the Perspective of Gender Structure: A Case Study in Western China

“…Among the variables, labor force was defined as the population in the family aged between 16 years and 50 years and excluded the population who were still at school or unable to work owing to illness, pregnancy, or disability. Migration was defined as working outside the county, where household registration was located for more than 3 months [55][56][57][58][59].…”