Interprovincial food trade aggravates China’s land scarcity

Land is an increasingly scarce resource that plays a critical role in achieving many Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Land scarcity, namely the imbalance state between cropland availability and demand, can be mitigated by the trade of agricultural products, but how effective it is remains uncle...

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Main Authors: He, Jianjian, Wang, Siqi, Heijungs, Reinout, Yang, Yi, Shu, Shumiao, Zhang, Weiwen, Xu, Anqi, Fang, Kai
Format: Journal Article
Language:Inglés
Published: Springer 2024
Subjects:
Online Access:https://hdl.handle.net/10568/138800
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author He, Jianjian
Wang, Siqi
Heijungs, Reinout
Yang, Yi
Shu, Shumiao
Zhang, Weiwen
Xu, Anqi
Fang, Kai
author_browse Fang, Kai
He, Jianjian
Heijungs, Reinout
Shu, Shumiao
Wang, Siqi
Xu, Anqi
Yang, Yi
Zhang, Weiwen
author_facet He, Jianjian
Wang, Siqi
Heijungs, Reinout
Yang, Yi
Shu, Shumiao
Zhang, Weiwen
Xu, Anqi
Fang, Kai
author_sort He, Jianjian
collection Repository of Agricultural Research Outputs (CGSpace)
description Land is an increasingly scarce resource that plays a critical role in achieving many Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Land scarcity, namely the imbalance state between cropland availability and demand, can be mitigated by the trade of agricultural products, but how effective it is remains unclear. Here, by integrating grid-level data on cropland into multi-regional input–output analysis, this paper accounts for the scarce land footprint and virtual scarce land flows within China at a 1 km × 1 km resolution. Results show that over 70% of China’s land footprint and scarce land footprint can be attributed to less than 20% of the land, and nearly 38% of the land footprint and scarce land footprint hotspot clusters are found to cross provinces. Generally, while virtual land trade mitigates the land scarcity of land-importing provinces by 50.8%, it disproportionately aggravates the land scarcity of land-exporting provinces by 119.8%. These findings challenge the dominant thinking about food trading and call for new policies to improve land resources management and promote collaborative governance across administrative boundaries. Our study also highlights the critical importance of considering land scarcity, shedding lights on how it may be integrated into environmental footprints to better assist the SDG framework.
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institution CGIAR Consortium
language Inglés
publishDate 2024
publishDateRange 2024
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spelling CGSpace1388002025-12-08T10:11:39Z Interprovincial food trade aggravates China’s land scarcity He, Jianjian Wang, Siqi Heijungs, Reinout Yang, Yi Shu, Shumiao Zhang, Weiwen Xu, Anqi Fang, Kai trade land access agricultural trade sustainable development goals Land is an increasingly scarce resource that plays a critical role in achieving many Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Land scarcity, namely the imbalance state between cropland availability and demand, can be mitigated by the trade of agricultural products, but how effective it is remains unclear. Here, by integrating grid-level data on cropland into multi-regional input–output analysis, this paper accounts for the scarce land footprint and virtual scarce land flows within China at a 1 km × 1 km resolution. Results show that over 70% of China’s land footprint and scarce land footprint can be attributed to less than 20% of the land, and nearly 38% of the land footprint and scarce land footprint hotspot clusters are found to cross provinces. Generally, while virtual land trade mitigates the land scarcity of land-importing provinces by 50.8%, it disproportionately aggravates the land scarcity of land-exporting provinces by 119.8%. These findings challenge the dominant thinking about food trading and call for new policies to improve land resources management and promote collaborative governance across administrative boundaries. Our study also highlights the critical importance of considering land scarcity, shedding lights on how it may be integrated into environmental footprints to better assist the SDG framework. 2024-01-08 2024-02-01T17:44:46Z 2024-02-01T17:44:46Z Journal Article https://hdl.handle.net/10568/138800 en Open Access Springer He, Jianjian; Wang, Siqi; Heijungs, Reinout; Yang, Yi; Shu, Shumiao; Zhang, Weiwen; Xu, Anqi; and Fang, Kai. 2024. Interprovincial food trade aggravates China’s land scarcity. Humanities and Social Sciences Communications 11: 76. https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-023-02534-9
spellingShingle trade
land access
agricultural trade
sustainable development goals
He, Jianjian
Wang, Siqi
Heijungs, Reinout
Yang, Yi
Shu, Shumiao
Zhang, Weiwen
Xu, Anqi
Fang, Kai
Interprovincial food trade aggravates China’s land scarcity
title Interprovincial food trade aggravates China’s land scarcity
title_full Interprovincial food trade aggravates China’s land scarcity
title_fullStr Interprovincial food trade aggravates China’s land scarcity
title_full_unstemmed Interprovincial food trade aggravates China’s land scarcity
title_short Interprovincial food trade aggravates China’s land scarcity
title_sort interprovincial food trade aggravates china s land scarcity
topic trade
land access
agricultural trade
sustainable development goals
url https://hdl.handle.net/10568/138800
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