Cultivated land loss arising from the rapid urbanization in China

China is short of cultivated land considering its huge population. Since the reform in the late 1970s, China has been experiencing rapid nation-wide urbanization. A large amount of cultivated land has been lost in this social and economic transition of the past 25 years. Utilizing the first national land resource survey results for 1996, official land use statistics for 1996-2002 and agricultural and socio-economic data for 1978-2002, this paper analyzes the process of cultivated land loss arising from this rapid urbanization, especially since the late 1990s. The research reveals that non-agricultural construction, readjustment of the land-use structure within the agricultural sectors and ecological land-use conversion are the main causes of this land loss; Urbanization is one of the most important driving forces for farmland loss, as it stimulates non-agricultural construction and the readjustment of the agricultural structures. As China s urbanization has developed to an accelerated phase, it is certain that much more arable land will change to other uses in the coming few decades. Much stricter arable land protection regulations and rational land-use countermeasures should be introduced to slow down arable land loss.