LAND RESOURCES OF CHINA

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  • Nanjing Institute of Soil Science, Chinese Academy of Sciences

Online published: 1990-04-15

Abstract

In this paper, the quantity, quality and the utilization of land resources are discussed in detail through the comparison between those of China and the world. China has a land area con-stituting 6.5% of the total land area of the world, of which the land used for agriculture, forestry and pasture is 10.4%, 12% and 33% respectively; the waste land that can be reclaimed for farm-ing is only 13.33 million hectares. With the increasing population, the pressure on the land resou-rces for food increase is increased. At present, China is the country of which the land area per capita is the smallest and the population supporting capacity of land is the largest; in addition, there are the problems of land degradation, erosion, desertification, salinization, alkalization, sw-amping and gleization pf soils and occupation of arable land for nonagricultural use. Therefore, in order to reasonably exploit and use the land resources in China, it is necessary to comprehensi-vely ccnsider land, biological and environmental conditions and adopt intensive management of land, raise crop yield per unit area, protect arable land as well as adopt proper measures in ac-cordance with local conditions. Finally, for further indicating the characteristics of land resou- rces in China, 8 land use regions have been divided and the general aspects of each region are illustrated.

Cite this article

Zhao Qiguo . LAND RESOURCES OF CHINA[J]. Acta Geographica Sinica, 1990 , 45(2) : 154 -162 . DOI: 10.11821/xb199002004

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