Transfer Patterns and Drivers of Embodied Agricultural Land within China: Based on Multi-Regional Decomposition Analysis

Agricultural land is fundamental to human survival and economic development. Unlike other resources, land resources are embodied in trade goods and commodities, which are continuously re-allocated between countries and regions. As a typical ecological element, agricultural land embodied in trade activities can play an essential role in allocating land resources and advancing agricultural development. Based on the multi-regional decomposition analysis, this study investigated the embodied agricultural land flows among 31 provinces/municipalities of China, and classified the transfer patterns into different drivers including intensity-, trade-, and specialization-driven types. The results showed that the total amount of embodied agricultural land is approximately half of the direct agricultural land use area. Among these regions, Heilongjiang had the largest embodied agricultural land outflows, while Guangdong showed a deficit of agricultural land with embodied inflows. For regions such as Heilongjiang, the relatively high intensity and trade specialization significantly contributed to the embodied agricultural land outflows. For municipalities such as Beijing and Shanghai in China, the embodied agricultural land played a practical role in balancing increasingly scarce land resources. From the embodied perspective, agricultural land linkages between supply and demand in different regions could provide a new perspective to address the agricultural land shortage and avoid the inefficient transfer flows, contributing to the optimal allocation of agricultural land within China.