Abstract:

The discussion on function transformation of agricultural utilization and its corresponding driving mechanism in the Three Gorges Reservoir Area (TGRA) can reflect the change of the relationship between people and environment in the transitional belt between central and western China, mountainous areas and reservoir area, and provide a scientific basis for the development of agricultural multi-function in typical mountainous areas. This paper, selected five counties from the hinterland of the TGRA as the study area, analyzed the change of scaling farmland and its corresponding mechanism by defining the concepts of "scaling farmland", with the aid of Arcgis10.2, SPSS, geodetectors and other technical means. Results show that the scaling farmland was mainly converted from cultivated land and shrubland. Apart from some land used for alpine off-season vegetables, the growth of scaling farmland generally occurred at low altitude, and was mainly found in the range with a slope of 30°. The spatial change of scaling farmland of different types was significantly different, which was closely related with road and township administrative center. At the patch level, natural factors such as elevation and slope contribute much to the scaling farmland. At the township level, the driving forces of socioeconomic and humanistic factors were attributed to road traffic, agricultural population density and so on. At the regional level, the influencing factors of each county were more significant than those of the study area. The change and development of scaling farmland was driven by many factors. But the agricultural policy had been one of the dominant factors. Behavior subjects at different levels would promote the scaling farmland development in different directions under the background of national agricultural development and policy implementation.

Key words: Three Gorges Reservoir Area, function transformation of agricultural land, spatio-temporal features, driving mechanism