标题：Biophysical and socioeconomic determinants of tea expansion: Apportioning their relative importance for sustainable land use policy

作者： Zhang, QW (Zhang, Qianwen); Gao, WJ (Gao, Wujun); Su, SL (Su, Shiliang); Weng, M (Weng, Min); Cai, ZL (Cai, zhongliang)

来源出版物：LAND USE POLICY 卷：68 页码: 438-447 DOI：10.1016/j.landusepol.2017.08.008 出版年： NOV 2017

摘要：Tea expansion, a typical process of regional land use and cover change (LUCC), has raised great concerns on regional sustainability. In this regard, exploring the determinants of tea expansion should provide critical implications for land use policy. It has been widely recognized that LUCC interacts nonlinearly with a set of determinants and their feedbacks should be rather complex. Policy makers are now facing the challenge to identify, apportion, and compare the determinants of regional tea expansion for designing more targeted political intervenes. Our paper utilizes a robust tool, the random forest (RF) regression in particular, to explore the determinants of tea expansion across two periods (1985-2007 and 2007-2016) in Anji County, a typical region of tea production in subtropical China. More specifically, tea is extracted from Landsat imageries and total tea cultivated area acts as the dependent variable. Exploratory variables include 38 potential determinants and these determinants are divided into two categories (biophysical and socioeconomic) at two levels (pixel and village). We obtain some similar findings, though the relative importance of determinants varies with the two periods. In general, biophysical determinants (e.g., topography, soil type, land use in the neighborhood) present greater relative importance than the socioeconomic determinants in both periods. In period 1985-2007, biophysical determinants at pixel level are more essential in governing tea expansion. In period 2007-2016, the relative importance of pixel level biophysical determinants is comparable with that of the village level determinants. Comparisons of the two periods indicate that relative importance of soil type and socioeconomic proximity becomes greater in period 2007-2016, while that of the total employees and non-agricultural population proportion becomes lower. Partial dependency plots are further drawn to visualize the marginal effect of each determinant. We finally propose three options for land use policy towards sustainability. Our study demonstrates that the RF regression is efficient for policy makers to understand the determinants of tea expansion with a nonlinear and complex nature.

入藏号：WOS:000413126200043

文献类型：Article

语种：English

作者关键词：Land use and cover change; Tea; Spatial determinants; Drivers; Multilevel analysis; Sustainability; Random forest regression

扩展关键词： AGRICULTURAL LAND; URBAN-GROWTH; SUBTROPICAL CHINA; SOUTHWEST CHINA; DRIVING FORCES; RANDOM FORESTS; DRIVERS; REGION; PLANTATIONS; LANDSCAPE

通讯作者地址：Su, SL (reprint author), 129 Luoyu Rd, Wuhan, Hubei, Peoples R China.

电子邮件地址：shiliangsu@whu.edu.cu

地址：

[Zhang, Qianwen; Su, Shiliang; Weng, Min; Cai, zhongliang] Wuhan Univ, Sch Resource & Environm Sci, Wuhan, Hubei, Peoples R China.

[Gao, Wujun; Su, Shiliang; Weng, Min] Chinese Acad Surveying & Mapping, Beijing, Peoples R China.

[Su, Shiliang] Wuhan Univ, Collaborat Innovat Ctr Geospatial Technol, Wuhan, Hubei, Peoples R China.

[Su, Shiliang; Weng, Min; Cai, zhongliang] Wuhan Univ, Minist Educ, Key Lab Geog Informat Syst, Wuhan, Hubei, Peoples R China.

影响因子：3.089