Scale effect analysis of driving forces of arable land of Fujian province - art. no. 67531H

Land use patterns are governed by a broad variety of potential driving forces and constraints which act over a large range of scales and multi-scale investigation of land use patterns is essential for full understanding of its complexity. The main purpose of this paper was to perform a multi-scale analysis of arable land distribution pattern of Fujian province by means of statistical analysis through overall study and each agro-zone respectively. 27 variables were selected as the candidate land use drivers representing bio-geophysical, socio-economic and infrastructural conditions. The basic spatial organization in the analysis was a 1km x 1km geographical grid. Through aggregations of these cells, a total of 10 artificial aggregation levels were obtained. The independent models of the whole study area and each 6 agro-zones of arable land distribution patterns were constructed at multiple scales respectively. The results showed that Land use models varied with aggregation level and also between agro-zones. Independent variables explained more of the variance for the explanation of land use type at higher aggregation levels. Except slope, the highest ranking variable, other variables of the arable land use model vary between agro-zone I to VI. But the general rule is that arable land in all 6 agro-zones is strictly restricted by topographic factors which changes little along with time. It is argued that these types of analyses can support quantitative multi-scale understanding of land use, needed for the spatially explicit land use change models.