The impact of spatiotemporal change in cropland use on local urban cereal supply in China

Abstract

CONTEXT

Local cereal production influences the sustainability of urban food system. Food self-sufficiency is widely studied on national and regional scale. However, few previous research focuses on urban cereal supply from a perspective of land use change.

OBJECTIVE

In this study, we studied the spatiotemporal change of urban cereal supply and the impact of cropland use change on urban cereal supply in Chinese prefecture-level cities from 2000 to 2019.

METHODS

This paper uses cereal (rice, wheat and maize) harvesting raster data, land use data and statistical data to calculate urban cereal supply. Spatial analysis and the geographically and temporally weighted regression model (GTWR) are used to investigate the impact of cropland use change on urban cereal supply.

RESULTS AND CONCLUSIONS

The results show that urban cereal supply of each Chinese city increases from 27 × 10⁴ t to 113 × 10⁴ t per year in the study period. The annual loss of urban cereal supply caused by cropland area change is 678 × 10⁴ t. Labor cost, pesticide fee and drainage and irrigation fee have positive impact on urban cereal supply, and the coefficients of labor cost continuously increase. Adaptation of agricultural inputs to local conditions is necessary.

SIGNIFICANCE

This work designs a new framework to describe the relationship between cropland use and urban cereal supply, which expands the understanding of urban-rural relationship in China and will contribute to reaching UN'S sustainable target.