A counterfactual scenario simulation approach for assessing the impact of farmland preservation policies on urban sprawl and food security in a major grain-producing area of China

A variety of studies have been conducted to assess the impact of farmland preservation policies in China. Most of these studies focus on the use of pure statistical approaches to assess the policy impact. A spatially explicit modeling framework is, however, often required to better assess the policy impact and to help understand the consequence of these policies. In this article, we developed such a spatially explicit modeling framework to assess the impact of policies on arable land loss and urban sprawl through the combination of counterfactual analysis with a scenario simulation approach. Counterfactual analysis provides support to assess the impact of farmland preservation policies, while scenario simulation enables us to generate counterfactual outcomes to capture possible land use patterns without policy intervention. With support from cellular automata, farmland preservation policies are integrated into the decision-making processes of land use conversion to link policy with scenario simulation. Our case study demonstrates the potential of the proposed modeling framework for the assessment of farmland preservation policies. Experimental results indicate that farmland preservation policies play an important role in terms of reducing the rate of arable land loss and governing spontaneous urban sprawl. (c) 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.