Understanding the evolving spatial pattern of land use is the basis of the theory and practice of land use/cover change (LUCC). It is helpful to optimize the use of land resources spatially and to improve the level of land use planning and management when the spatial patterns of land use are described effectively. At present, the commonalities in the scope of the spatial pattern of land use are still unclear, and research on the spatial pattern of land use has only recently begun to pay attention to the shape, patch distribution, structure, and relationships among different types of land use. In addition, the correlations among different pattern indicators have resulted in the redundancy in the pattern metrics. Further study is needed to establish the corresponding relationships between indicators and land use spatial patterns. This study summarized the area, shape, and patch distribution for land use maps as geometric characteristics, and summarized the structure and diversity as land use class characteristics. Based on the above conceptual model, an index system of land use spatial patterns was established. Then, the corresponding relationships between the indicators and the spatial patterns were established using fuzzy C-means clustering. The results indicated that the geometric characteristics of land use in China could be divided into five types: a simple large patch type, a complex large patch type, a complex small patch type, a simple small patch type, and a scattered type. Different geometric features reflected the characteristics of the area, the shape and the patch distribution and the combination of regional land use types. In 2010, there were 61 structures of land use in China, but a subset of 14 structures was the majority. The structural characteristics clustered in space and showed apparent spatial heterogeneity of different land use types. The diversity of land use in China was dominated by 3-5 categories, accounting for 66.69% of all the grids. The diversity over space was generally high in the northeast and the southeast, but low in the northwest. In summary, this study enriches the theoretical system of land use spatial pattern and fills a gap in the systematic description of the overall spatial patterns of China's land use.

Habitat quality determines the status of regional biodiversity which is an important reflection of ecosystem service function and health. Research on the habitat quality change is of great significance for regional ecological security. The reconstruction of regional spatial pattern of habitat quality can restore the background of ecological environment in historical periods and provide scientific support for revealing the evolution law of regional ecological environment quality. This study selected ten driving factors (elevation, slope, aspect, GDP, population, temperature, rainfall, river distance, urban distance and coastline distance) to build CA-Markov model parameters and simulate the historical land use data. The spatial pattern of habitat quality was rebuilt by InVEST model, and the classification and statistics of habitat degradation and habitat quality were examined. The results showed that: (1) The Kappa coefficient is 0.88, which proves that the land use spatial pattern reconstruction method is feasible. On this basis, the simulation of habitat quality is valid. (2) During 1975-2010, the degree of habitat degradation increased gradually and the spatial distribution of it showed a regular pattern of circle layer change. The habitat quality decreased steadily. The high-value areas were mainly distributed in mountainous areas, while the low-value areas were mostly distributed across built-up areas. In this period, the low-value areas gradually engulfed the high-value areas around, and the habitats of the high-value areas tended to be fragmented. (3) In 1975-2010, the spatio-temporal variations of habitat quality indicated that the region with the worst habitat quality were difficult to recover; the regions with the poor habitat quality accounted for 6.40% of the total area, which were prone to deteriorate and occur around the built-up areas; the areas with the best or better habitat quality grades accounted for 5.68% of the total area, which could be easily transformed into the poor and worst habitat grades, making the habitat more scattered. (4) There was a marked change with land use of study areas during 1975-2010, which had a huge impact on the quality of the habitat. The above results show that the habitat quality of the study area decreases gradually. More than 60% of the regions have poor or even worst habitat quality. Construction land is the biggest factor threatening the habitat quality.

In recent years, land urbanization, as a spatial manifestation of China's expanding urbanization, has emerged as a core research field within urban geography and land science. Provincial administrative departments within China's distinctive administrative system significantly influence municipal administrative departments and urbanization levels. Individual-level influencing factors cannot fully explain the Chinese mode of urbanization. Therefore, a multilevel linear model was developed to identify factors influencing China's land urbanization process. The results indicated that in 2005, factor inputs, in particular, and public service critically influenced land urbanization in municipal urban areas. By 2016, economic development levels had superseded factor inputs, public service, and population agglomeration as the key influencing factor. At the provincial level, differences in economic development levels critically influenced land urbanization. The provincial government's prioritization of ecological and agricultural resource conservation had a significant negative impact on city-level factors and urban built-up areas. The relationship between the government's developmental attitude, geographical locations, and city-level factors was complex and varied according to regional development levels. A further finding was that since China's reform and opening-up policy was initiated in 1978, land urbanization has been driven by industrialization and urbanization, gradually shifting from government-led to economy-driven stage. Thus, a multilevel study of land urbanization reveals mechanisms and cross-level relationships among different factors that influence levels of land urbanization. Moreover, it provides a theoretical basis for rational policy formulation.

Urban planning construction land standard is the technical specification for allocating various types of urban construction land scientifically, and is the basis for drawing up and revising the overall urban planning as well. In view of China's current urban planning construction land standard, there are many problems such as the big gap of land use control threshold, the lack of regional differences in climate revision, and ignorance of the topographical and geomorphological factors. To solve these problems, this paper proposed a step-by-step process framework and quantitative calculation method for the establishment and revision of standards in accordance with the principle of "total-structure" control. Through the setting of conditions, a universal basic standard for construction land was established. Then quantitative analysis was made for the relations between each index and the basic standard with the selected key indicators such as urban population size, sunshine spacing coefficient, valley area (intermountain basin) width and terrain slope. Finally we formed a revision standard for climate, topography and geomorphology which is matched with the basic standard. The main results are as follows: (1) The per capita construction land area of 95 m ²/person can be used as the total indicator for the basic standard of urban planning in China. The percentage of corresponding per capita for each type of construction land is 32.5% for residential land, 7.42% for public administration and public service land, 22.5% for industrial land, 17.5% for transport facilities, 12.5% of green land, and 7.58% of other types of land. The results of revision value of urban population scale shows that the impact of population size difference on the per capita construction land is relatively weak. (2) The climate revision results of per capita residential land and per capita construction land in major cities show that the climate revision value varies greatly between northern and southern China. The climate revision value of the per capita area of construction land varies by latitude as follows: the figure for 20° north latitude is 93 m ²/person; the figure for 30° north latitude is 97 m ²/person; the figure for 40° north latitude is 103 m ²/person; and the figure for 50° north latitude is 115 m ²/person. The basic standard value of 95 m ²/person is roughly distributed along the Xiamen - Guilin - Kunming line. (3) The cities located in mountainous areas, hilly valleys or intermontane basins can reduce the allocation of community parks and comprehensive parks when the average width of river valley or intermontane basin is less than 2 km. When the average width of the valley or intermontane basins is between 2 km and 4 km, the allocation of the comprehensive parks can be reduced. The revised results of per capita land for construction use on slopes indicate that the terrain slope has a great impact on the revised value of per capita construction land. The revised value at 3° is 3.68% higher than the baseline value, and the increases of 8°, 15° and 25° are 11.25%, 26.49% and 68.47%, respectively.

Landform is an important factor determining the spatial pattern of cropland through allocating surface water and heat. Therefore, it is of great significance to study the change of cropland distribution from the perspective of geomorphologic division. Based on China's multi-year land cover data (1990, 1995, 2000, 2005, 2010 and 2015) and geomorphologic regionalization data, we analyzed the change of cropland area and its distribution pattern in six geomorphologic regions of China over the period 1990-2015 with the aid of GIS techniques. Our results showed that the total cropland area increased from 177.1 to 178.5 million hectares with an average increase rate of 0.03%. Cropland acreage decreased in southern China and increased in northern China. Region I (eastern hilly plains) had the highest cropland increase rate, while the dynamic degree of Region IV (northwestern middle and high mountains, basins and plateaus) was significantly higher than that of other regions. The barycenter of China's land cultivation had shifted from North China to northwest over the 25 years. Regions IV and I were the two high-growth regions of cultivated land. Region II (southeastern low-middle mountains) and Region V (southwestern middle and low mountains, plateaus and basins) were the main decreasing regions of cultivated land. The area of cultivated land remained almost unchanged in Region III (north China and Inner Mongolia eastern-central mountains and plateaus) and Region VI (Tibetan Plateau). The loss of cropland occurred mostly in regions I and II as a result of growing industrialization and urbanization, while the increase of cropland occurred mainly in Region IV because of reclamation of grasslands and other wastelands.

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.

This paper pointed out that the alleged rapid increase of the information entropy of the land use structure in the urbanized areas should refer to the increase of the information entropy of the suburban land use structure in the urbanized areas. The obvious shift of the suburban land use structure towards the equilibrium direction during the period of urbanization leads to the increase of the information entropy of the suburban land use structure. Meanwhile the information entropy of the land use structure in urban built-up area has not increased. The proportion of various land use types in the urban built-up area during the period of urbanization is basically stable or enlarged on the residential areas, industrial and mining areas as well as the transportation land to some extent. This makes the information entropy of the land use structure in the urban built-up area basically remain unchanged or decrease somewhat. The local urbanized areas in the suburbs have made major contributions to the increase of the information entropy of the suburban land use structure. Data analysis shows that a great amount of suburban farmland is quickly transformed into urban construction land during the period of urbanization and the proportion of the urban construction land is highly and positively correlated with the information entropy of the suburban land use structure. It can be seen that the rapid increase of the urban construction land is the main reason for the increasing information entropy of the suburban land use structure. The analysis of entropy change indicates that the entropy of suburban system during the period of urbanization displays the same changing trend with the information entropy of the suburban land use structure, and both of them are greater than zero, which suggests that the suburban natural environments during the period of urbanization develop in a decline.

With the rapid development of urbanization and the continuous loss of the rural labor force, large areas of farmland have been abandoned in some regions of China. Remote sensing technology can indirectly help to detect the size and quantity of abandoned farmland, which is of great significance for the protection of farmland and food security. Using Qingyun and Wudi counties of Shandong Province as the study area, and based on the Landsat data and HJ-1A data, this paper uses the CART decision tree classification method to develop land use maps from 1990 to 2017, set down rules to identify abandoned farmland, and explore the spatial distribution, duration, and reclamation area of abandoned farmland. The results showed that the accuracy of the CART decision tree classification was higher than 85% from 1990 to 2017. The maximum abandoned farmland area was 5503.86 hm² from 1992 to 2017, and the maximum abandonment rate was 5.37%. The rate of farmland abandonment reached the peak from 1996 to 1998, and the overall trend of abandonment has decreased year by year after 2006. The maximum duration of abandonment was 15 years during the period of 1992 to 2017. Most of the durations were within four years and a few durations were more than ten years. From 1993 to 2017, the maximum reclamation area of abandoned farmland was 2022.3 hm², and the minimum reclamation area was about 20 hm². The maximum reclamation rate was 67.44% and the annual average reclamation rate was 31.83%. The results from this paper not only help analyze the driving forces of farmland abandonment in the study area, but also provide references for the identification of abandoned farmland in other areas.

Land circulation is an important measure that can be utilized to enable agricultural management at a moderate scale. It is imperative to explore spatiotemporal changes in land circulation and the factors that drive these variations in order to increase the vitality of land rental market in China. Based on a sample of 169 511 farm households from the rural fixed observation point system between 2003 and 2013, this paper revealed the regional differences in land circulation and used Heckman two-stage models to identify the drivers of regional differences in land circulation. The results of this study show that: (1) the rate of land circulation in China rose from 17.09% to 24.1% over the course of the study period, an average rate of 0.7%. (2) The rate of land circulation in the south of China has been higher than that in the north, the average land rental payment was 283.74 yuan per mu, and 55.05% of farm households did not pay a fee in the process of land circulation. In contrast, the average rent that leasers received was 243.23 yuan per mu nationally even though 52.36% of households did not receive any payments from their tenants. At present, the rate of rent-free land circulation was more than 50% in China's land rental market. In addition, the average rent in developed provinces, such as Jiangsu, Shandong, Guangdong and Zhejiang, was 40% higher than the national average. (3) The results show that land quality, geographic location, transaction costs, and household characteristics have all significantly affected land circulation in different regions of China. The marginal effects of land quality and geographic location were larger in the plain regions, while transaction cost was the key factor influencing land circulation in the hilly and mountainous regions. The essence of rent-free land circulation was a sign of mismatch of land resources, and the marginalization of mountainous regions and higher transaction costs reduced the potential value of land resources. Thus, as the opportunity cost of farming continues to rise across China, the depreciation of land assets will become irreversible and land abandonment will be anabatic in the hills and mountains in the future. The transaction costs in land rental market should be reduced by establishing the land circulation intermediaries at the township level. Also, more attention should be given to the critical issues of farmland abandonment and poverty reduction in the hills and mountains.

In agricultural society, the cultivation of mountainous land was a representative of intensified contradiction between human and land which resulted in water loss and soil erosion. With the rapid urbanization and industrialization in poverty-stricken mountainous areas, the labor emigration relieves this contradiction significantly, and leads to land use transition, which results in a series of natural and socio-economic changes. This research built an analysis framework of "Land use transition - driving mechanism - effects - responses" in mountainous land use transition and then put forward the further direction of mountainous land reclamation. The results indicate that: (1) The tendency change of land use morphology was the core of rural land use transition in mountainous areas. The expansion of cropland, as well as the contraction of forest land in agricultural society, has changed to the abandonment of cropland and the expansion of forest land is the main characteristic of the dominant land use morphology transition. Land marginalization and land ecological functional recovery are the main characteristics of the recessive land use morphology transition in mountainous areas. (2) Socio-economic factors are the primary driving forces during the mountainous land use transition. Labor emigration is the direct driving forces. Meanwhile, the rising costs of farming opportunities, and the harsh living environment that lead to labor emigration are the root cause for mountainous land use transition. (3) The transition of rural land use in mountainous areas reduces the vulnerability of land ecosystem and improves its ecological security barrier function. The advantages and disadvantages of its socio-economic effects should focus on rural development of mountainous areas and the livelihood of farmers, and need to be supported by empirical and quantitative researches. (4) The transition of land use in rural areas is a benign process of natural restoration and ecological optimization. The rural land remediation in mountainous areas should conform to the law of land use transition, and the target orientation will shift from the increase of cultivated land to the synergies of ecological and environmental protection.

Taking counties as the basic unit, this paper establishes the evaluation index system of farmland functions from the dimensions of economy, society and ecology, adopts the method combining entropy weighting and multiple correlation coefficient weighting to determine the weights, and calculates the farmland function indices of each county. Subsequently, the spatio-temporal characteristics of farmland functions evolution were analyzed and the coupling relationships between the sub-functions were explored based on the coupling coordination model, simultaneously, the dynamic mechanism of farmland functions evolution was quantitatively probed by applying the spatial econometric regression analysis method in this research. Major conclusions were drawn as follows: (1) The farmland economic function generally presented a declining trend during 1990-2010. Especially, the function is strengthened in underdeveloped and agriculture dominated counties, and weakened continuously in developed areas on contrary; 60.29% of the counties decrease in farmland social function, whereas some counties, which are mostly located in the north of Zhengzhou, the west of Dezhou and Cangzhou, Yantai and Weihai, have experienced an obvious increase; The dramatic decline of farmland ecological function has occurred around Beijing, Tianjin and Jinan. Areas located in northern Henan Province and central Shandong Province has witnessed an increase of ecological function. (2) There is a significant spatial difference in the coupling degree and coordination degree of the sub-functions, and the decoupling phenomenon gradually highlights. The changes of social function and ecological function lag behind those of economic function in developed areas, but they are highly coupled in some underdeveloped areas. (3) The evolution of farmland functions in the Huang-Huai-Hai Plain resulted from the comprehensive effects of regional basic conditions and external driving factors. Furthermore, the transition of population and industry in the process of urbanization and industrialization plays a decisive role in evolution intensity and direction of farmland sub-systems including economy, society and ecology. According to the results above mentioned, agricultural modernization, industrialization and promoting the transformation of traditional agriculture should be regarded as an important engine driving the sustainable development of Huang-Huai-Hai Plain. In view of regional differentiation characteristics of farmland functions evolution, differentiated and diversified farmland use and management modes should be implemented from developed urban areas to underdeveloped traditional agricultural areas.

China puts forward the national strategy of fallow plan so as to improve the sustainable grain production capacity of arable land and alleviate the continuous decline of the groundwater level in the Huang-Huai-Hai Plain. Aiming at estimation of sustainable grain productivity for ensuring the implementation of this strategy, this paper learns management experience and experimental production from agricultural experiment station and adopts step-by-step correction method in twelve agricultural ecological zones, which are relatively uniform in social and economic conditions based on the sustainable theory and water balance. The results showed that: (1) The total sustainable grain production capacity of arable land under water balance in the Huang-Huai-Hai Plain was 116 million t/year. (2) The yield gap of sustainable grain productivity was -0.67 million t/year, the wheat yield gap was -3.31 million t/year due to limited-water irrigation and the maize yield gap was positive. (3) The loss area of wheat production is mainly distributed in Heilonggang area, Luxi Plain, the Beijing-Tianjin-Tangshan Plain and the eastern Henan Plain, and the potential area is mainly in Xuhuai Plain, the Northern Anhui Plain and Jiaoxi Yellow River Flood Plain. The research was valuable for understanding the sustainable productivity of cultivated land and implementing the reliable spatial pattern of agricultural production in the Huang-Huai-Hai Plain.

The quantitative reconstruction of historical urban land use and urbanization level data sets can make contribution to good simulation of the environmental effects of land use and cover change. In this study, urban land use and city patterns above or within the county level in Jiangxi Province during the Republican era are reconstructed with the aid of the ArcGIS platform on the basis of the military map during the Japanese invasion of China. A comprehensive data set, which contains the city wall perimeter, urban land area, non-construction land in the city wall, and construction land outside the city wall, is obtained. The data set with a 10% error based on the comparison with detailed data from other studies can be applied to land use models of various historical periods. The county-scale level of land urbanization is analyzed. The "farmland-inside-city" phenomenon occurred in 20 cities, which accounted for 25% of the total number of cities in Jiangxi. The "urban-outside-city" phenomenon is found in 28 cities, which accounted for 35% of the total number of cities in the province. The result shows that the overall area of urban construction was 87.99 km², which accounted for 0.053% of Jiangxi's total area. The overall urbanization rate of Jiangxi during the Republican era was 0.047%. Of all the cities and counties in the province, Nanchang had the highest urbanization rate (0.19%), whereas Suichuan reached only 0.007%. The urbanization level was positively correlated with the population (r = 0.457, P < 0.001). The data sets of urban land use and urbanization in Jiangxi can provide land use data for relevant global environmental change models.

Using the system dynamics (SD), the feedback loop of urban construction land between supply and demand and function relationship between index variables are built up to simulate the change trends of the balance of land resources supply and demand in Changsha-Zhuzhou-Xiangtan urban agglomeration from 2016 to 2030 in three scenarios, i.e., low intensity mode, medium intensity mode and high intensity mode based on the land resources supply and demand system dynamic model. The simulation suggested that: (1) the construction land scale is still in the expansion state, and the amount of urban construction land is increasing rapidly. However, there are differences in the scale and speed of land use under the three development modes. (2) Under the low intensity mode, the scale of construction land and the quantity of land supply are large, which is prone to the waste of land resources; under the high intensity mode, the supply of construction land is contracted, and the scale of land use is growing slowly and the total scale is small, which is not conducive to the healthy development of new-type urbanization; under the medium intensity mode, the scale of land use and the amount of supply can be adapted to the development of social economy, which can reflect the concept of modern city. (3) The proportion of industrial land to construction land maintains at 15%-21%, in which the proportion under the low intensity mode increases year by year, and slows down and keeps stable under the proper intensity mode and high intensity mode; the proportion of residential land to construction land maintains at 27%-35%, in which the proportion under the low and the medium intensity modes slow down, and the proportion of the high intensity mode keeps at a high level.

Model simulation and scenarios change analysis are the core contents of the future land use change study. In this paper, land use status data of the Three Gorge Reservoir Area (TGRA) in 1990 were used as base data. The relationship between driving factors and land use was analyzed by using binary logistic stepwise regression analysis, based on which land use in 2010 was simulated by CLUE-S model. After the inspection and determination of main parameters impacting driving factors of land use in the TGRA, land use of the TGRA in 2030 was simulated based on four scenarios, including natural growth, food security, emigrant construction and ecological protection. The results were shown as follows: (1) The areas under ROC curves of land use types were both greater than 0.8 under the analysis and inspection of binary logistic model. These land use types include paddy field, dry land, forestland, grassland, construction land and water area. Therefore, it has a strong interpretation ability of driving factors on land use, which can be used in the estimation of land use probability distribution. (2) The Kappa coefficients, verified from the result of land use simulation in 2010, were showed of paddy field 0.9, dry land 0.95, forestland 0.97, grassland 0.84, construction land 0.85 and water area 0.77. So the results of simulation could meet the needs of future simulation and prediction. (3) The results of multi-scenarios simulation show a spatial competition relationship between different land use types, and an influence on food security, emigrant construction and ecological protection in the TGRA, including some land use change such as the large-scale conversion from paddy field to dry land, the occupation of cultivated land, rapid expansion of construction land from forestland and grassland, the reclamation of cultivated land to forestland and grassland, the conversion of forestland and grassland to cultivated land. Therefore, it is necessary to balance the needs of various aspects in land use optimization, so as to achieve the coordination between social economy and ecological environment.

Based on "Cropland Taxes" and "the Number of Households" data recorded in historical documents, this paper estimated cropland area of the Northern Song Dynasty by analyzing some society factors in this dynasty, including land use policies and taxation system. Besides, by quantifying the relationship among population proportion, per capita cropland and cropland spatial pattern in the mid-Northern Song Dynasty, we designed a cropland distribution model. And the model was used to reconstruct cropland area at Lu (administrative region of the Northern Song Dynasty) scale for AD 976, 997, 1066 and 1078. The results are shown as follows: (1) The cropland area of the whole study area for AD 976, 997, 1066 and 1078 of the Northern Song Dynasty were about 468.27 million mu (Chinese area unit, 1 mu=666.7 m²), 495.53 million mu, 697.65 million mu and 731.94 million mu, respectively, and 264 million mu was increased for AD 976-1078. The annual growth rate of cropland area was about 4.4‰, and the reclamation rate (i.e. ratio of cropland area to total land area) increased from 10.7% to 16.8%, and per capita cropland area decreased from 15.7 mu to 8.4 mu. (2) In terms of the characteristics of cropland spatial pattern change, the reclamation rate of the Southeast, Northern and Southwest in the Northern Song territory increased by 12.0%, 5.2% and 1.2%, respectively, and that of some regions of the Yangtze River Plain increased to more than 40%, and for the North China Plain the reclamation rate increased to more than 20%. The reclamation rate of the Southwest (except the Chengdu Plain) in the Northern Song territory was less than 6%. (3) The evaluation results show that the absolute relative error of 84.2% Lu was less than 20%, so the cropland distribution model is feasible. Therefore, our reconstruction results can reflect the spatial-temporal characteristics of cropland area in the Northern Song Dynasty.

More and more farmland has been abandoned in many developed countries since the 1950s, and then the abandoned land further evolved into a global land use phenomenon, which deeply changed the landscape in vast rural areas. "Land use change-driving mechanism-impacts & consequences-policy response" in global farmland abandonment were reviewed and the results indicated that: (1) Farmland abandonments mainly occurred in developed countries of Europe and North America, but the extent to which varied distinctly. (2) Socio-economic factors were the primary driving forces for the farmland abandonment. And land marginalization was the root cause of land abandonment, which was due to the drastic increase of farming opportunity cost, while the direct factor of abandonment was the decline of agricultural labor forces. (3) Whether to abandon, to what extent and its spatial distributions were finally dependent on combined effect from the physical conditions, labor characteristics, farming and regional socio-economic conditions at village, household and parcel scales. Farmland abandonment was more likely to occur in mountainous and hilly areas except for Eastern Europe due the unfavorable farming conditions. (4) Ecological and environmental effects should be the focus on the study of farmland abandonment, while which is positive or negative are still in dispute. (5) The increase of agricultural subsidies indeed will be conductive to slow down the farmland abandonment, but it is not the only and reasonable method.

Due to rapid urbanization in China, there will be a high probability of abandonment expansion in the near future. However, few researches focused on this rapid land-use trend in China, leading to inadequate understandings of dynamic mechanism and consequences of this phenomenon. Thus, in the end of the paper, some directions of future research in China were presented: regional and national monitoring of abandonment dynamics, trend and risk assessment, social-economic effects assessment and informed policymaking.

Since the beginning of the 21st century, built-up area had been increased driven by the rapid social and economic development, which had brought a series of socio-economic and environmental issues. In order to realize the goal of national sustainable development, China needs to scientifically formulate plans for developing and protecting land. Some scholars carried out the research on a draft plan for major function-oriented zones, which supportted the implementation of China's national plan for major function-oriented zones since 2010. In order to analyze the characteristics of built-up area in each major function-oriented zone before and after the plan's implement, as well as assess the plan's guiding role in regional development and possible problems in the plan's implementation promptly, it is necessary to adopt effective measures to monitor and evaluate land development activities in each of the major function-oriented zones. Therefore, using a China's Land Use Database (CLUD) during 2000-2010 interpreted from high-resolution remotely sensed images by our team, this study updated the CLUD between 2010 and 2013, and then developed the dataset of built-up area expansions for above two period. We analyzed and compared spatio-temporal characteristics and differences on built-up area expansion for national major function-oriented among China's four developing regions (east, central, west and northeast) in the periods for 2000-2010 and 2010-2013. The results showed the following: (1) On the whole, the percentage of built-up area in each of the major function-oriented zones was significant different, revealing the gradient feature of national land development based on the distribution of the main functions in 2013. (2) Compared to 2000-2010, in the period 2010-2013 annual growth rate in built-up area in optimal development zones decreased significantly, while annual growth rate in built-up area in key development zones, agricultural production zones and key ecological function zones increased significantly, with annual average expanding area of built-up area in key development zones and agricultural production zones exceeding that of optimal development zones, and the annual average expanding area and dynamic degree of built-up area remained lowest in key ecological function zones. (3) At the regional scale, the average annual increase in built-up area in optimal development zones in the Yangtze River Delta region was significantly higher than optimal development zones in other regions; the average area increase and rate of increase of built-up area in key development zones was faster in the western region than in other regions; average annual area growth of built-up area in agricultural production zones in the northeast, central and western regions was twice as high as the previous decade on average, while the annual rate of increase in the western region was three times as high as in the previous decade; the annual rate of change and increase in the dynamic degree of built-up area were most notable in key ecological function zones in the central region. (4) In general, the spatial pattern and characteristics of built-up area expansions in the period 2010-2013 reflected the gradient feature of the plan for major function-oriented zones. But the rate of increase locally in built-up aura in optimal development zones, agricultural production zones and key ecological function zones is fast, so the effective measures must be adopted in the implement of national and regional policies. By developing an analytical method to examine regional differences and spatial heterogeneity of built-up area expansions before and after the implement of the plan for major function-oriented zones, this study delineated the adjusting degree on between built-up area expansions from major function-oriented zones and the plan for major function-oriented zones. The conclusions indicated these methods and results were meaningful for future regulation strategies in optimizing national land development in China.

Based on economic geography perspective and county-level statistical data, this paper examined the temporal-spatial processes of herbivorous livestock industry and its environmental pressure using GIS technology and mathematical modeling approach. The results showed that: (1) The whole breeding quantity of herbivorous livestock increased obviously, but there were significant differences between breeds. From 1978 to 2012, the quantity of herbivorous livestock increased by 92.5%, and the order of breading quantity is beef cattle > mutton sheep > cow. (2) The number of counties with an increasing herbivorous livestock quantity was larger than that with a decreasing quantity. Besides, the breeding quantity in northern China grew significantly faster than that of southern China, presenting a pattern of "the north is more active than the south". (3) Spatial Dubin-Model (SDM) showed that five indexes including per capita grain yield, productive land area proportion, per capita available income of downtown, agricultural mechanization level, agricultural labor productivity, and policies had positive effects on the development of herbivorous livestock breeding, while per capita GDP, urbanization level and non-agricultural income proportion had significantly negative effects. (4) Based on the self-organizing feature map (SOM), herbivorous livestock breeding counties in China could be divided into six types, and different measures should be taken for different priorities.

In this paper, the smooth crops growth NDVI curves from 1999 to 2013 were rebuilt by the S-G techniques, with the combination of 10-day SPOT time-series NDVI data from 1998 to 2013 with the spatial resolution of 1 km and land use data in 2000, 2005 and 2010. Spatial and temporal changes of multiple cropping index (MCI) from 1999 to 2013 in China were extracted by a difference algorithm. The results are as follows: (1) The total precision of sample validation based on visual identification was 91.95%, and the slope of linear regression of the MCI between remotely sensed data and statistical data was 0.73 (R=0.775, P<0.001), suggesting that this method is an effective way to extracting spatial information of the MCI for agricultural and land management. (2) From the north to the south of China, the MCI gradually becomes more and more complex. The percentages of the single, double and triple cropping system occupying the total cropland were 43.48%, 56.39% and 0.13%, respectively in China. (3) From 1999 to 2013, the overall cropping index increased with an annual rate of 1.29% (P<0.001) in China, while it exhibited significant differentiation in different zones. The area with a significant decreasing trend occupied 2.12% (P<0.1) of the total cropland and was found at the borders of Hebei, Beijing and Tianjin, central Anhui, the Chengdu Plain, the Poyang Lake Plain, northern and southern Hunan, and central Guangxi. The area with a significant increasing trend occupied 16.40% (P<0.1) of the total cropland and was distributed in eastern Gansu, the Weihe Plain of Shaanxi, western Shanxi, the borders of Hebei, Shandong and Tianjin, the Shandong Peninsula, and the Jianghan Plain. (4) Terrain and economic development level played an important role in the regional differentiation of MCI change. There is a positive correlation between terrain and the inter-annual changes of MCI, and a negative correlation between economic development level and the inter-annual changes of MCI.