Spatiotemporal features of farmland scaling and the mechanisms that underlie these changes within the Three Gorges Reservoir Area

摘要

Discussions regarding the functional transformation of agricultural utilization and the mechanisms that underlie these changes within the Three Gorges Reservoir Area(TGRA)reflect variati ons in the relati on ship betwee n people and their environme nt in China's central and wester ns part,an area of mountains and reservoirs.A clear understa nding of these changes also provides the scientific basis for the development of multi-functional agriculture in typical mountainous areas.Five counties were selected for analysis in this study from the hinterland of the TGRA;we analyzed changes in farmland scaling and corresponding under?lying mechanisms by defining the concepts of“Scaling Farmland”(SF)and by using the software packages ArcGIS10.2,SPSS,and Geographical Detectors.The results of this analysis show that sources of increased SF have mainly comprised cultivated and shrub land.In deed,with the excepti on of some alpine off-season vegetables,SF growth has mainly occurred in low altitude areas and in places where the slope is less than 30°.We also show that spatial changes in various SF types have also been substantially different,but in all cases are closely related to road and township administrative centers.Natural factors at the patch level,including elevation and slope,have contributed significantly to SF,while at the township level,underlying socioeconomic and humanistic factors have tended to include road traffic and agricultural population density.In contrast,at the region al level,underlying driving forces within each have tended to be more significant than overall study area scale.We show that while changes in,and the development of,SF have been driven by numerous factors,agri?cultural policies have always been amongst the most important.The results clearly elucidate general land use transformation patter ns within the mountain regi ons of western China.