%0 Journal Article %A Shuanglong CHEN %A Wei SONG %A Han LI %A Han LI %T Patterns and Driving Forces of Cropland Abandonment in Mountainous Areas %D 2022 %R 10.5814/j.issn.1674-764x.2022.03.005 %J Journal of Resources and Ecology %P 394-406 %V 13 %N 3 %X

Cropland abandonment is spreading from developed countries to developing countries such as China. Cropland abandonment in China commonly occurs in mountainous areas due to their specific natural and geographical conditions. However, due to the lack of dependable monitoring methods via medium-high-resolution remote sensing images, the scale of abandoned cropland in many mountainous areas of China is unclear, and the mechanisms driving cropland abandonment have not been clearly identified. To overcome these limitations, we took Zhong County of Chongqing in China as an example, and used Landsat 8 OLI_TIRS remote sensing image data to develop a method for mapping abandoned cropland in mountainous areas based on annual land use change monitoring. At the same time, the ridge regression method was adopted to analyze the factors influencing cropland abandonment. These analyses showed that the cropland abandonment rate in Zhong County of Chongqing was as high as 7.86%, while the overall accuracy of identifying abandoned cropland was as high as 90.82%. Among the social and economic factors that affect cropland abandonment, the rural population, economic development, and livestock husbandry development were the most important ones. At the land parcel scale, large-scale cropland abandonment occurred in areas at elevations above 650 m or with slopes of more than 15°.

%U https://www.jorae.cn/EN/10.5814/j.issn.1674-764x.2022.03.005