Research On Dynamic Spatiotemporal Evolution And Formation Mechanism Of Farmland Conversion Of Chongqing

Since 2014, China has been facing downward pressures on the economy and entering a new normal of medium-high-level growth, due to the impact of slow recovery of global economy and downturn of domestic real estate market. Therefore, to realize the intensive use of resources and construct the new mechanism for sustainable and healthy economic growth would be the key issues at the present stage of China. Since the reform and opening up, China has experienced rapid development for nearly 30 years, the urbanization rate increased from 17.92% to 56.10% with an average annual increase rate of 1.03%. Farmland conversion(i.e. farmland non-agriculture process) is an inevitable phenomenon and trend in the processes of social and economic development, which provids powerful support for industrialization and urbanization with easy supply and high consumption of land. Meanwhile, it has caused realistic problems as inefficient use of construction land, significant loss of farmland, ecological environment degradation and social unstability etc. With the continuous development of economy and society, urban expansion and the spatial accumulation of non-agricultural elements, the farmland conversion’s distribution differences mapped out continuous restructuring and alienation in the space of regional natural conditions, social and economic development level and other relevant factors, especially at the edge of the city. Thus, understanding dynamic spatiotemporal evolution and formation mechanism could help us to scientifically control the process of farmland conversion and then to promote the sustainable interaction between nature and humanity in the process of economic development.However, the systematic and comprehensive study of farmland conversion of Chongqing is very weak at present. The farmland conversion of Chongqing, which carries the obvious characteristics of large urban areas, large rural areas, large mountain areas and large reservoir areas, presents significant space distribution, dramatic changing and wide effect in recent years. Therefore, in this dissertation, according to literature review and related concepts analysis, several statistical measurement modeles were integrated into the spatial and temporal exploration of geography based on the perspective of resources and environment statistics theory and analysis. The methods contained in the dissertation with integrated application of Dagum Gini coefficient, non-parametric Kernel density estimation, geographic detector, co-integration test, Granger causality test and super efficiency SBM model etc., with the aid of Excel, SPSS, Eviews, Matlab, Arc GIS and Maxdea & DEA solver Pro. This dissertation has analyzed the dynamic spatiotemporal evolution regulation of the level and efficiency of farmland conversion of Chongqing in different stage from both the quantitative and qualitative perspectives, focusing on calculating and analyzing the efficiency loss of farmland conversion and multivariable interaction among farmland conversion input and economic growth. It has quantitatively described spatiotemporal evolution and formation mechanism of farmland conversion of different stages and different regions in Chongqing, and then constructed differential management strategies for armland conversion controlling, which might provide scientific basis and support for relevant departments to make policies, planing and strategy, to promote efficient utilization of regional land resources and sustainable and healthy economic development. The contents and main conclusions of this dissertation are as follows:Firstly, from the quantitative perspective, this dissertation has calculated and analyzed the spatial non-equilibrium degree and dynamic evolution of farmland conversion in research regions with application of Dagum Gini coefficient, non-parametric Kernel density estimation based on Arc GIS. The result showed that:(1) the spatiotemporal dynamics of farmland conversion of Chongqing demonstrated a significant characteristic of regional difference, which was a spatial differentiation pattern of "Center- periphery" and taking regional I as the center, the region II as the circle, the region III and the region IV the peripheral;(2) the distribution of farmland conversion level showed a significant characteristic of spatial non-equilibrium, demonstrating a waving shape like “W” which is mainly led by the regional disparity;(3) the regional disparity showed an expanding trend of farmland conversion of Chongqing with the rising of farmland conversion level.Secondly, from the qualitative perspective, this dissertation has constructed an index with comprehensive input of economy, society and ecology and expected output different from index selection of economic output of past research, focusing on the disturbance on environment of farmland conversion process, calculated the utilization efficiency of farmland conversion objectively, scientifically, reasonably and comprehensively, and analyzed the reasons of efficiency loss of farmland conversion with application of SBM model. The calculation result showed that:(1) the efficiency of farmland conversion presents a trend of fluctuation with significant regional differences;(2) in the perspective of the redundancy of input and output, the reason that caused the efficiency loss of farmland conversion of each decision making unit, which might be farmland input redundancy, undesirable output, unmatched input factors and inadequate expected output;(3) on the basis of cross correlation analysis, input redundancy of farmland conversion and external diseconomy in process of farmland conversion might be the most important factors caused the efficiency loss of farmland conversion. Consequently, there was still a large space for saving resources and protecting environment, so that improving resources utilization efficiency, reducing excessive consumption of farmland conversion and increasing investment in environment protection and pollution control could be the important way to improve the efficiency of regional farmland conversion.Thirdly, due to input redundancy of farmland conversion, which is the main reason of efficiency loss of farmland conversion, the formation mechanism of farmland conversion level of different regions in Chongqing should be further backtracked and excavated from quantitative perspective. Geographic detector has been employed to study the influencing factors of farmland conversion in different regions in quantitative perspective. The result showed that:(1) factor endowment, economic development, social development and policies environment are respectively basic conditions, intrinsic motivation, core strength and external conditions of farmland conversion spatial differentiation;(2) the determining force of influencing factors of each area are different, respectively, the primary influencing factor of region Ⅰ is location advantage so that aggregation of non-agricultural elements and population in space boost the process of farmland conversion; for region Ⅱ, the population aggregation and the rapid development of secondary industry proved to be the determining force of promoting urban expansion and farmland conversion; Unlike the above two areas, farmland conversion process, in region Ⅲ and region Ⅳ, are restricted by location, topography, road network density and the convergence of industrial structure etc., while it is mainly driven by policies.Fourthly, as economic growth was the internal dynamics and core elements influencing on spatial differentiation of farmland conversion, moreover, the interaction mechanism between input of farmland conversion and economic growth should be clarified. This dissertation has discussed about empirical model of multivariate causal analysis based on the production function, which pulled in the capital input, labor input as the mediating variable, to analyze the causal relationship in short and long term between farmland conversion and economic development. According to the empirical study and tests with standard econometric methods, the result showed that:(1) Consequently, it has proved that there was a long-term and stable co-integrative relation among the farmland conversion quantity of Chongqing(land), the capital stock of secondary and tertiary industry(capital), the labor input of secondary and tertiary industry(labor) and the Gross Domestic Product of secondary and tertiary industry(economic growth);(2) in a short term and above the significant level of 5%, there existed two-way causality between input of farmland conversion and the capital stock of the secondary and tertiary industries of Chongqing, while there is no one-way or two-way causality with economic growth which has proved to be promoted by capital stock input of the secondary and tertiary industries and labor input of the secondary and tertiary industries. And farmland conversion of Chongqing could not promote the economic growth directly owing to its transmission hysteresis;(3) Moreover, there existed one-way causal relationship from economic growth to farmland conversion due to the construction period and industry development period, in accordance of the long term causality test and above the significant level of 5%. Therefore, there was no direct cause and effect relationship between farmland conversion and economic growth.Based on the above research conclusion, in order to realize sustained economic growth under the premise of reasonable control of farmland conversion in Chongqing, and according to comprehensive consideration of the dynamic spatiotemporal evolution rule of farmland conversion, the leading factors of spatial differentiation of farmland conversion in different areas, the causality relationship between farmland conversion and economic growth and the land use efficiency in the farmland non-agricultural process, from quantitative and qualitative perspective, this dissertation has put forward six specific measures, which respectively are to carry out specialized control polices of farmland conversion according to local specific condition; to abandon the inherent planned economy thinking habits and regulate the behavior of the government in the allocation of resources; to break the local government land finance dependence and ease the capital bottleneck problem with multi-channel financing; to promote the new urbanization and promote farmers’ local urbanization; to increase the input to agriculture, rural areas and farmers and reduce the gap between urban and rural areas; to change the economic growth type and promote the supply side reform to realize the intensive use of land resources.This dissertation may include the following aspects of innovation:(1) this dissertation has realized effective combination of qualitative analysis, quantitative analysis and positioning analysis of dynamic spatiotemporal evolution and formation mechanism of farmland conversion trough integrating the statistical measurement model and geography space exploration. Econometric models including Dagum Gini coefficient and non-parametric Kernel density estimation were utilized to decompose and depict the spatiotemporal dynamic evolution processes and characters of spatial dis-equilibrium. Spatial econometric model and Geographical detector were employed to quantitatively analyze determining force of influencing factors of farmland conversion, it has broken the hypothesis that the determining force of distribution of influencing factors was homogeneous. The application of models(i.e. econometric models and spatial econometric model) might be creative in broadening research perspective of formation mechanism and enriching research contents;(2) This dissertation has constructed an index with comprehensive input of economy, society and ecology and expected output by further excavating the connotation of farmland conversion efficiency, and calculated the utilization efficiency of farmland conversion of 37 DMUs in Chongqing with application of SBM model in accordance of connotation excavation and focus on the impact on environment and society of farmland conversion. It has overcomed the limitations of existing research on the neglection of the social output and the environment and the defect of traditional DEA model without the ability to sort the DMUs. These could be reference to evaluate the conversion efficiency for other farmland conversion areas;(3) Capital input and labor input, as the intermediary variables, were introduced into the multivariate causality research model, which was based on the production function. It has changed the thought of existing research that they always discuss the casual relationship between farmland conversion and economic growth based on two variables. So, it might be an innovation in the research routs.