Global and Planetary Change 100 (2013) 224–233

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Global and Planetary Change

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/gloplacha

Review paper

Synthesis of China's land use in the past 300 years

Lijuan Miao a, Feng Zhu a, Bin He a, Marion Ferrat a, Qiang Liu a, Xue Cao b, Xuefeng Cui a,⁎
a
State Key Laboratory of Earth Surface Processes and Resource Ecology, College of Global Change and Earth System Science, Beijing Normal University, 100875, China
b
College of Geographic and Oceanographic Sciences, Nanjing University, 210093, China

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: China's land use has undergone many changes over the past 300 years due to the significant transformations
Received 15 June 2012 caused by natural and human factors and their impact on regional climate and the environment. This com-
Accepted 25 October 2012 prehensive review of recent state-of-the-art studies of China's land-use changes during that period concen-
Available online 1 November 2012
trates on cropland, forest, grassland and urban areas. While most small-scale studies have reconstructed
information from historical archive data and focused on a specific time period, large-scale studies
Keywords:
China
have tended to rely on inverse modeling techniques to interpret land-use change dynamics based on
300 years remote-sensing data for example, the global land-use products of the History Database of the Global Environ-
spatial reconstruction ment (HYDE) and Center for Sustainability and the Global Environment (SAGE) datasets. All studies have
cropland shown that the cropland areas in China increased between 1700 and 1950, although they indicate different
forest magnitudes and rates. A decrease in forest coverage was also reported in all studies. Little information was
urban available on urban and grassland areas over the same period. Rapid urbanization in China has been particu-
grassland larly evident in the past 50 years. Meanwhile, spatially explicit reconstructions of historical land-use change
in China since 1700 remain highly uncertain due to the lack of reliable data. Extensive work on primary data
collection is required, including land-use records and drivers for future change.
© 2012 Elsevier B.V. Open access under CC BY-NC-ND license.

Contents

1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 224
2. Data sources . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 225
3. Results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 225
3.1. Cropland . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 225
3.2. Forest . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 229
3.3. Urban . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 230
3.4. Grassland . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 231
4. Discussion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 231
5. Summary and conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 232
Acknowledgments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 232
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 232

1. Introduction Change (IPCC) Fourth Assessment Report pointed out in 2007 that
LUCC is significantly correlated with climate change through biophys-
Global land use and land cover change (LUCC) (Godfray et al., ical and biogeochemical processes (Feddema et al., 2005) and has
2010) includes deforestation to allow for increased cropland or influenced the terrestrial carbon cycle by affecting carbon sources
pasture (Aide and Grau, 2004), and for urban expansion (Foley et and sinks (Houghton, 1995; Wu et al., 2003; Piao et al., 2009).
al., 2005). LUCC generally occurs at the local scale but may have a sig- Research on LUCC has attracted much attention from the internation-
nificant global impact (Pitman and Hesse, 2007; Malhi et al., 2008; al scientific community. The LUCC International Project (1994–2004)
Ruddiman and Ellis, 2009). The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate and Global Land Project (GLP, from 2005) have promoted significant
improvements in our understanding of the overall process of LUCC,
⁎ Corresponding author. Tel.: +86 10 58802701; fax: +86 10 58802165. particularly the role of human activity. In order to better understand
E-mail address: xuefeng.cui@bnu.edu.cn (X. Cui). and predict current and future changes in land cover and their

0921-8181 © 2012 Elsevier B.V. Open access under CC BY-NC-ND license.

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.gloplacha.2012.10.021
 L. Miao et al. / Global and Planetary Change 100 (2013) 224–233
potential impact on the environment and human society, it is crucial
to be aware of past trends. Understanding past human–climate–en-
vironment interactions is essential for assessing the vulnerability of
landscapes and ecosystems to the effects of future climate change
(McGregor et al., 2009). A key question for investigation in LUCC re-
search has therefore been: how has land use changed in the past, and
what were the mechanisms that led to these changes?
Reconstruction of historical LUCC relies on historical archives or in-
verse modeling, or a combination of the two, briefly described below:
(1) Historical archives. Using historical archives to reconstruct LUCC
relies on the extraction of LUCC information from historical
documents and writings (Ge et al., 2008a; Ye et al., 2009a). The
difficulty of this method lies in indirectly obtaining LUCC infor-
mation from a wide range of documents that have been compiled
using different resources during different historical periods.
Furthermore, the available data does not relate to large areas,
and is focused on specific time periods. For example, the valuable
records of federal land taxes have commonly been used to inter-
pret historical cropland areas, but they vary with geographical
location, political administration, land quality, accounting meth-
od and economic background.
(2) Inverse modeling. Inverse (mathematical) models are mainly de-
veloped from known mechanisms of LUCC and known relation-
ships between population and land use, and therefore rely
heavily on the quality of the historical data, the precision of
the remote-sensing data and the accuracy of the algorithm(s)
used. This technique generally provides long-term data on
land-use change, but only on a large scale. An example is the
global historical land-use SAGE database (Ramankutty and
Foley, 1999), which has been widely applied in global LUCC
studies (Brovkin et al., 2004; Pongratz et al., 2008).
(3) Combined techniques. Recent attempts at understanding histori-
cal LUCC have focused on combining the results from the
above two methods, thereby engaging global datasets in region-
al studies (Li et al., 2010; Klein Goldewijk et al., 2011).
Ramankutty and Foley (1999) calibrated the International
Geosphere-Biosphere Programme (IGBP) 1 km-resolution Global
Land Cover Characterization (GLCC) dataset against cropland in-
ventory data from 1992 to create a continuous global data set
for cultivated land. The data was then extrapolated backwards
in time using hindcast modeling by combining it with a compila-
tion of historical cropland inventory data to create a dataset of
croplands for the period 1700 to 1992 (Klein Goldewijk et al.,
2010). The HYDE dataset has been continually updated (latest
version 3.1) by incorporating more detailed and reliable invento-
ry data of population and land-use data from various sources
(Klein Goldewijk et al., 2011).
China occupies the third-largest land area in the world and supports
about 22% of the world's population with only 7% of the world's total ar-
able land (Yu et al., 2012). China was one of the world's first cultivated
areas. It has responded to the rapid population growth of the past
300 years by an unprecedented expansion of its agricultural land
(Klein Goldewijk, 2005). The significance is that, in pre-industrial
times, the expansion of agriculture was probably the dominant process
by which humankind altered the Earth's systems, although little is
known about the extent, timing or spatial patterns of these changes
(Pongratz et al., 2008). Fortunately, a significant store of valuable docu-
ments survives, helping us to characterize and understand these
changes (Houghton and Hackler, 2003; Liu et al., 2005a; Ye et al.,
2006; Ge et al., 2008a).
Although great progress has been made, large gaps remain in
high-resolution temporal and spatial historical land use reconstruc-
tions for China. In the present study, we have collected all available
historical land-use datasets, including cropland, forest, grassland
and urban area, to provide the first comprehensive overview of
225
historical land use changes in China. Unused land, shrublands or graz-
ing land is not included due to the lack of information data. One of the
key objectives of the study was to identify gaps in the research and
propose priorities for future studies.
2. Data sources
The datasets used in this study listed in Table 1 include all the
available land-use datasets covering the past 300 years (approxi-
mately 1700–2000) for all spatial units in China (province, region
and county). These were obtained from Web of Science, Google Schol-
ar and the Chinese literature-search database Chinese National
Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI), using a combination of keywords
including China, land use, history, 300 years, cropland, forest, urban
and grassland. In this study, most of the datasets, except the global
datasets, are denoted by the author's name; the references are listed
in Table 1 along with the number allocated to them in the reference
list (D1–D34). Most of the data concerns crops and forest; little infor-
mation is available for urban and grassland areas. The spatial cover-
age of the regional datasets is presented in Fig. 1. A number of
regions are covered by several studies at various resolutions, while
some regions, such as north-western China, have a limited coverage.
Notably, the definitions of land-use classes are also unclear or impre-
cise in most datasets and direct comparisons between them may be
problematic.
3. Results
3.1. Cropland
Fig. 2 shows the historical changes in cropland areas that occurred
in China from 1700 to 2009, taken from various data sources. All
studies show that cropland areas increased from 1700 to 1950,
but the SAGE and ZHOU datasets stand out from the others, with
the former showing an extremely rapid increase in cropland areas
of up to 230 Mha from 1700 to 1950, followed by a steep decrease
after 1950.
Whereas the magnitude of the increase in cropland areas from
1700 to 1950 is significantly higher in SAGE than elsewhere, as men-
tioned above, the rates of the cropland increase given by the other
three long-term datasets, HYDE, LIU and GE2 are smaller and also
similar, averaging 0.188 Mha/yr. LIANG and ZHANG seem to present
similar changes throughout the studied periods. Despite the similar
rates, the total magnitude of the cropland areas reconstructed from
LIU is consistently larger than GE1 by 30 Mha.
Cropland areas peaked in about 1890 and again in 1955 according to
LIU and GE2, but not according to HYDE. Historical records revealed the
occurrence of serious droughts in 1928–1931 and waterlogging in
1933–1934, which both led to a decrease in cropland areas (Gao,
1994). Population was recognized as the most important driver of
land-use change (Bilsborrow and Ogendo, 1992; Klein Goldewijk,
2001; Liu and Tian, 2010). Events that occurred between the
mid-19th century and 1949 (the year of the foundation of the People's
Republic of China), especially China's war of resistance against Japan
(1937–1945), caused both social unrest and population fluctuations
which were the leading causes of land-use change during those periods.
Nevertheless, cropland areas were not significantly reduced during
those two periods, which suggests that disasters and wars were not
the main cause of land-use change at that time.
Since 1912, more datasets have become available (FAO, GE1, DANG,
FENG, ZHOU, CPRI, CARI, and XU, Fig. 3 inset). GE, FENG and CARI indi-
cate similar trends and quantities; CPR and XU were the largest after
1912. All datasets except GE display a consistent increase in cropland
areas from 1949 until 1956, which may have reflected the “Land to
the Tiller!” land reform program that encouraged laborers' enthusiasm
and was related to the input of chemical fertilizer, farm machinery
226 L. Miao et al. / Global and Planetary Change 100 (2013) 224–233

Table 1
China land-use databases for the period 1700–2000.

ID Dataset name LUCC types Resolution Temporal Methods and data resources References
coverage

D1 SAGE Cropland Forest 5′ global scale 1700–1992 AVHRR-based land cover, historical cropland Ramankutty and Foley (1999)
inventory data with a simple model www.sage.wisc.edu/iamdata
D2 HYDE Cropland Pasture 5′ global scale 10,000 BC– Historical population, cropland and pasture statistics, Klein Goldewijk et al. (2011)
AD 2000 satellite information and specific allocation algorithms
D3 KAUPP Forest National or regional 1500–2000 Forest type from FAO Kauppi et al. (2006)
forest global scale
D4 TREE COVER Forest 1 km global scale 1992, 1993 AVHRR-based satellite information Defries et al. (2000)
D5 HE Forest Province in China 1700–1949 Historical documents, modern survey and statistics He et al. (2008)
D6 LIU Forest Cropland 10 km China 1700–2005 Historical gridded data sets from high-resolution Liu and Tian (2010)
Urban satellite data and long-term historical survey data
D7 CNEC Cropland County scale, China Three NE 1683–2002 Historical data and correction Ye et al. (2009a)
provinces
(Heilongjiang, Jilin, Liaoning)
D8 GE 1 Cropland Forest Provincial scale, China 18 1661–2000 Historical data and correction Ge et al. (2003, 2008b)
provinces
D9 GE 2 Cropland Forest Region in China 1913–1980 Historical data Ge and Dai (2005)
D10 LING Forest China 1770, 1977 Historical data Ling (1983)
D11 LIANG Cropland China 1661–1887 Historical official data Liang (2008)
D12 ZHANG Cropland China 1812, Historical data Zhang (1991)
1851, 1887
D13 ZHOU Cropland China 1661–1840 Historical data Zhou (2001)
D14 SHI Cropland China 1661–1887 Historical data Shi (1993)
D15 HE and GE Urban 18 provinces in China 1820, 1999 Historical data He et al. (2002)
D16 TIAN and LI Cropland Loess Plateau in China 1700–2000 From HYDE and historical data Tian et al. (2012)
D17 ZHANG and Cropland 0.5° Eastern China 1724–1995 From Chinese natural resource database Zhang and Chen (2007)
CHEN
D18 ZHAO Cropland Jiangsu and Anhui counties in 1735, 1932, Historical data Zao (2005)
China 1953
D19 FU Cropland Henan Province in China 1368–1953 Historical data Fu (2005)
D20 LIU SHILING Cropland Henan Province in China 1935, Historical data Liu (2009)
1940, 1946
D21 ZHAOHAIXIAO Cropland Four counties above the Fenhe 1781, 1892 Historical data Zhao (2007)
River (in Shanxi Province)
D22 YAN Cropland Western Liaohe River County 1900–1990 Historical data Yan and Han (2004)
D23 LU Urban Beijing in China 1911–1997 Historical data Lu et al. (2001)
D24 MAO Cropland Forest White City in Jilin Province 1890–1950 Historical data Remote-sensing data model Mao (2010)
Urban etc.
D25 TIAN Cropland Forest Re cha sui in China County 1724–1996 Historical data correction Population data Tian (2005)
Grassland
D26 LIU and Cropland Forest China 1990, Based on Landsat TM Liu et al. (2003)
ZHANG Grassland Urban 1995, 2000
D27 GE Cropland Forest China 1927–1997 Historical data Ge et al. (2000)
Grassland Urban
D28 DANG Cropland China 1949–2000 Historical data and prediction Dang and Yan (1998)
D29 FENG Cropland China 1949–2003 Inversion based on statistical data Feng et al. (2005)
D30 FAN Forest China 2069 BC– Historical data Fan and Dong (2001)
1998 AD
D31 CPR Cropland China 1949–1986 Historical data Fu et al. (2007)
D32 CARI Cropland China 1953–1989 Historical data Bi and Zheng (2000)
D33 XU Cropland China 1913–1949 Historical data Xu (1998)
D34 ZHENG Cropland China 1651–1910 Historical data Zheng et al. (1998)

and government financial support. The datasets display unexpected
discrepancies after 1949, based on different state statistics. FAO, DANG
and CPR datasets show a decreasing trend after 1956. FAO data shows
a dramatic jump from 1981 to 1992, contrary to the trend indicated
by FENG. All datasets show a decreasing trend after 1990. It is difficult
to determine which dataset provides the most accurate information,
as all studies used quite different data sources and probably used
different accounting methods.
On the left is displayed the data for China as a whole in 1735, 1933
and 2000, using a modern-day baseline map (also for forest, urban
and grassland). The right-hand panels show county-scale information
for Jiangsu and Anhui Provinces (highlighted in red in left-hand-side
maps) for the same years. The gray sections observed in the 1735 and
1933 datasets are for Mengxin and Qingzang Provinces, for which
reliable reconstructed data is not available. Upper left: both figures
are from D7 and D8. Upper right: both figures are from D18. Others
are from D26 after calculation (see Table 1 for details).
Fig. 4 shows the spatial pattern of historical changes of cropland
areas as percentages of cropland for a given area. The increasing trend
observed in Figs. 2 and 3 is mirrored in the cropland spatial distribution,
with the greatest increase occurring in eastern China—specifically, crop-
lands in the three north-eastern provinces of Heilongjiang, Jilin and
Liaoning, and in Henan, Jiangsu and Anhui, which experienced a rela-
tively larger expansion. As Fig. 3c shows, the major agricultural produc-
tion provinces are Shandong, Henan, Anhui, Hunan, Hebei and Jiangsu
(locations in Fig. 1). In 2000 (Fig. 4c) a regional pattern similar to that
of the other two years is evident (Fig. 4a, b).
In the three north-eastern provinces, the area of cultivated land has
grown almost exponentially over the last 300 years, most markedly in
the past 100 years. The rate of reclamation (cropland as a proportion
of total land use) has jumped from 10% to more than 20% (Ye et al.,
2006). The reclamation changes were due to population increase
(Zhao et al., 2002), wars, policy, natural environmental changes (Ge et
al., 2003) and human activity (Zeng et al., 2011), but it has been argued
 L. Miao et al. / Global and Planetary Change 100 (2013) 224–233 227

Fig. 1. Spatial coverage of regional historical land-use reconstruction datasets.

Fig. 2. Historical changes in cropland areas in China in the past 300 years, 1700–2009. LIU Fig. 3. Historical changes in cropland areas in China in the past 100 years. [Inset: de-
from D6; GE 1 from D8; SAGE from bwww.sage.wisc.edu/iamdata>; HYDE from bhttp:// tailed description for 1912–2009 from more data resources.] GE from D27; FAO from
themasites.pbl.nl/en/themasites>; ZHOU from D13; ZHANG from D12; SHI from D14; bhttp://www.fao.org>; DANG from D28; FENG from D29; CPR from D31; CARI from
LIANG from D11; and ZHENG from D34. D32; and XU from D33.
228 L. Miao et al. / Global and Planetary Change 100 (2013) 224–233

Fig. 4. Spatial distribution of cropland in 1735, 1933 and 2000. Data for 1735 from D7; data for 1933 from D8; and data for 2000 from D26.
 L. Miao et al. / Global and Planetary Change 100 (2013) 224–233 229

Fig. 7. Changes of urban area in the past 300 years. HYDE: D2; LIU: D6; and GE: D28.
Fig. 5. Quantitative changes in China's forested areas in the past 300 years. Left axis:
SAGE from D1; LING from D10; LIU from D6. Right axis: HE from D5; and FAN from
D30 (see Table 1 for details).
3.2. Forest

that they were mainly the response of the populace to economic oppor- The areal extent of China's forest coverage has seen dramatic changes
tunity (Lambin et al., 2001). The areas in eastern and western Jiangsu over the past few millennia, dropping from 60% about 4000 years ago to
and Anhui Provinces (right-hand panels, Fig. 4) evidently experienced 17% by 1840, then to 12.5% before the foundation of the People's Republic
a huge expansion. of China in 1949 (Fan and Dong, 2001). Fig. 6 shows the spatial

Fig. 6. Spatial distribution of forested land in 1700, 1800, 1900 and 2000. Data for 1700, 1800 and 1900 from D5; and 2000 from D26.
230 L. Miao et al. / Global and Planetary Change 100 (2013) 224–233

distribution of forests in China in the years 1700, 1800, 1940 and 2000. In-
deed, GE1 (Ge et al., 2008b) estimated that the forest area was more than
halved, from 248.13 Mha to 109.01 Mha, between 1700 and 1949. Most
of China's deforestation in modern times took place between 1840 and
1949 (Fan and Dong, 2001) notably as a result of the large Chinese popu-
lation increase over the past 300 years, which caused large food and fuel
demands and stresses on natural resources.
Based on the dataset D10, LING estimated the forest area and cov-
erage rate in terms of provincial units in the 1990s (Ling, 1983). The
HE results from 1750 to 1900 are based on the historical statistical
data from the Qing Dynasty, and current research results and LIU for-
est data from 1949 to 1990 is derived from six forest censuses. All da-
Fig. 9. Changes of grassland area in China in the past 300 years. HYDE: D2.
tabases indicate that China's forest cover decreased from 1700 to
1950, then increased until 2000 (Fig. 5).
Both the time series and spatial distribution reflect a significant de-
crease in forest cover area, notably in the southern and north-eastern
areas. For instance, LIU suggested that forests shrank rapidly while
Goldewijk, 2005). The LIU data shows a constant increase in urban
cropland expanded in NE and SW China between 1700 and 2005. It is
areas from less than 2 Mha in 1700 to approximately 6 Mha by
worth noting that forest coverage in those areas is larger than in other
1950, followed by a rapid growth to more than 18 Mha in the subse-
provinces. The forested areas in the three north-eastern provinces
quent 50 years to 2000. The HYDE reconstruction, however, indicates
(Heilongjiang, Jilin and Liaoning) did not change appreciably between
more-or-less constant urban land use area until 1950, followed by a
1700 and 1800, but significant deforestation took place in the next
slow increase to 4 Mha in 2000. The GE database includes changes
200 years to 2000. In western and eastern Liaoning Province, and
only from 1950 onwards, divided into four development phases: an
along the Yalu River and Changbai Mountains, the natural vegetation
initial stage (1949–1957), a “rolling” phase (1958–1965), a stagna-
was completely destroyed (Ye et al., 2009b). Since the foundation of
tion phase (1966–1977) and a continued development phase
New China in 1949 there has been a substantial increase in forested
(1978–present) (Ge et al., 2008a) (Fig. 8).
areas, particularly in southern China.
HE (D5) was the only dataset showing the spatial pattern of urban
Although it has been possible to gain important information re-
areas in the 18 provinces in 1820 during the Qing Dynasty. At that
garding forest coverage, there remain many discrepancies between
time, urban areas covered a total area of 1987.44 km2, mostly concen-
data at the province scale (He et al., 2008) and county scale (Ye et
trated in the Zhili Province (incorporating the present Beijing, Tianjing,
al., 2009b), highlighting the need for further work on the collection
and Hebei Provinces), Shandong Province, Shanxi Province, Henan
and re-analysis of historical forest data at the county scale.
Province, Jiangsu Province, Zhejiang Province and Fujian Province.
Lower population densities were characteristic of the southern prov-
3.3. Urban inces of Guangxi and Guangdong. The pattern of urban development
at that time was consistent with the modern 21st-century pattern,
Reconstruction of historical changes in urban areas is complicated wherein coastal cities develop more rapidly than inland areas. Driving
by the lack of reliable historical information. Only two datasets con- forces related to the dependency on urban areas include geographical
tain information on long-term changes in urban land cover (Fig. 7), pattern differences (Yan and Lin, 2004), the availability of natural re-
often with the aid of more, and better, subnational (population) sources, economic development and population growth (Zhang et al.,
data to improve the historical (urban and rural) population maps as 2011), demographic change, and changes in land-use policies and regu-
one of the major driving forces for allocation of land cover (Klein lations (Liu et al., 2005b).

Fig. 8. Spatial distribution of urban land use. Left: from D15; right: reclassified from D26.
 L. Miao et al. / Global and Planetary Change 100 (2013) 224–233
Fig. 10. Spatial distribution of grassland in China in 1730, 1930 and 2000. Reclassified from HYDE for 1730, 1930, 2000 (D2) and LIU in 2000 (D26).
3.4. Grassland
Accurate historical data related to grassland cover in China is even
more scarce than for urban areas, although useful data does exist for
the three northern provinces. Only the HYDE dataset provides
long-term historical information on grassland changes; this dupli-
cates recent post-1961 changes provided by the FAO data (Fig. 9).
Fig. 11. Historical records of Chinese population, 1700–2000.
Sources: Cao (2001), Zhang (1991); Populstat dataset bwww.populstat.info>.
231
China's total area of grassland relatively slowly increased until
1950, then rapidly expanded until 2000, from which time it has de-
creased, perhaps attributable to the establishment in 1999 of the
“Grain for Green Project”, the world's largest ecological engineering
project, aimed at increasing the total extent of grassland areas in
China. The three north-eastern provinces were typically abundant in
forests and grasslands, with the latter covering almost 40% of the
total area during the past 300 years. However, this proportion de-
creased by 10% between 1900 and 1950, notably as a result of wars
and the expansion of croplands (Ye et al., 2009b).
As Fig. 10 shows, some areas of grassland showed a relatively rapid in-
crease during the past 300 years, with the highest coverage being located
mainly in north-western China. The mismatches between HYDE and LIU
in 2000 probably derive from the different definitions of grassland
adopted. In HYDE 3.1, grassland refers to permanent meadows and pas-
tures which grow herbaceous forage crops, both cultivated (grazing
land) or native (wild prairie); in LIU it is defined as herb-based grassland
which is only taken into account if it covers more than 5% of the area.
4. Discussion
Most of the available historical data for cropland and forest covers
land-use changes that were directly linked with the human population
and with ecological systems, while data for urban and grassland areas is
232 L. Miao et al. / Global and Planetary Change 100 (2013) 224–233
relatively scarce except in global datasets. Even for cropland, the spatial
coverage of the historical archives is not evenly distributed. Detailed
spatial information at the county level is available for certain time pe-
riods for several provinces (Shangdong, Henan, Jiangsu and NE China),
while very little information is available for NW China. It is also of inter-
est to point out that the definition of land-use classifications varies be-
tween datasets to the extent that it is difficult, if not impossible, to
combine the information satisfactorily. Therefore, the uncertainties
and gaps in knowledge of the spatial and temporal changes pose the
greatest challenge to an accurate estimation of historical land use.
Both SAGE and HYDE 3.1 provide continuous information on
land-use changes in China, but they show significant differences in
total quantities and spatial distribution of cropland areas in NE
China, despite the abundant data available for carrying out historical
reconstruction of land use change (Li et al., 2010). Regional data
based on historical archives provides better explicit information on
spatial patterns, but the time-resolution of these datasets is generally
low and inconsistent, and gathering and translating it into land use
information are not a straightforward matter. Combining various
techniques and input resources to provide better information of re-
construction would be the best solution.
Although cropland, forest, urban and grassland changes have had
their own driving factors, the analysis of large numbers of historical
documents revealed that there are also internal relationships between
the four kinds of land use patterns, both in spatial distribution and
total area (Klein Goldewijk, 2001). The GE data (Ge et al., 2008b) indi-
cated that certain periods were characterized by an “anti-correction”
between forest and cropland areal extent. For example, the Qing Dynas-
ty (1644–1911) was a time of rapid increase in cropland and a corre-
spondingly rapid decrease in forest.
Lambin et al. (2001) argued that land-use policies and projections
of the future role of land-use change in the Earth system dynamics
must not only capture the complex socioeconomic and biophysical
drivers of land-use change but must also account for the specific
human and environmental conditions under which the drivers of
change operate. Fig. 11 illustrates the historical population trends in
China. It shows parallel trends of urban expansion and cropland in-
crease until 1950, indicating their close interrelationship. An accurate
estimation of historical population data is crucial for the reconstruc-
tion of historical land use change, since most inverse models rely
heavily on the mechanisms of human–environment interactions
which still require intensive research.
5. Summary and conclusions
The reconstruction of historical land use in China is relevant to re-
search into climate change, biogeochemical evolution and ecological
evolution, and has attracted considerable attention in recent years.
This study aimed to review all available land-use datasets relevant
to China over the past 300 years, focusing on changes in cropland,
forest, urban and grassland areas. However, accurate estimates of his-
torical LUCC are still challenged by much uncertainty and gaps in the
knowledge of spatial and temporal changes. Most of the available in-
formation, both historical and contemporary, relates to cropland and
forested land. Further research is encouraged to develop ways of
combining the various methods and data sources, particularly for in-
corporating global data into regional studies, in order to provide a
better understanding of the relationship between human activity
and environmental conditions.
Acknowledgments
The authors are grateful for the constructive comments from the
editor and two anonymous reviewers. This work was supported by
the National Basic Research Development Program of China (grant
no. 2011CB952001 and 2010CB428502), National Science Foundation
of China (grant no. 41271542), Program for New Century Excellent
Talents in University (grant no. NCET-09-0227), National High Tech-
nology Research and Development Program of China (grant no.
2010AA012305) and the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central
Universities.
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