Agricultural Land Use Change in Chongqing and the Policy Rationale behind It: A Multiscale Perspective

Agricultural land resources have been the central issue for Chinese government in its attempts to secure food and agricultural sustainability. Yet strict use control does not protect from erosion by urban expansion. Identifying specific patterns mechanisms of conversion, thus, is critical management related decision making. Based on annual nominal 30 m use/land cover datasets (called CLUD-A), this study goes below national/regional level examine conversion Chongqing a multiscale perspective. At metropolis subdivision’s scales, volume area has generally increasing, 122.40 km2 1980–1990, 162.26 1990–2000, 706.14 2000–2010, 684.83 2010–2015. Such main city surroundings far outweighed that rural outskirts, as 68.9% (1990–2000), 92.2% (2000–2010), 82.7% (2010–2015) happened former. Moreover, values Gini coefficients coefficient variation (CV) based county/district scale (Gini [0.46, 0.64], CV [0.69, 0.99] throughout four periods) are much lower than those town/village [0.88, 0.94], [3.18, 4.47] periods), suggesting uneven extent spatial distribution trickles down along with downscale administration: administrative level, more severe unbalance. The policy rationale behind transition also discussed. This research argues tangible approaches sustainable rural-urban transformation.