Moving transmission centers of embodied forage-livestock conflicts from non-pastoral provinces to pastoral provinces in China

Forage-livestock conflict (FLC) causes rangeland degradation and poses a threat to climate change mitigation, food security, and sustainable development. Previous studies have investigated the hotspots of in situ FLCs. However, region-sectors of supply chains transferring embodied FLCs are overlooked. This study identifies transmission centers of embodied FLCs in China during 2005–2015 based on multi-regional input-output analysis. The results show that transmission centers are mostly light industries, such as the “agricultural and sideline products processing” sectors of Inner Mongolia and Shandong and the “textile industry” sector of Jiangsu. Moreover, the geographical distribution of transmission centers changed during 2005–2015. In particular, several transmission centers were moving from non-pastoral provinces to pastoral provinces. This is influenced by structural changes in supply chains. The findings of this study provide deep leverage points of interventions. They can support effective productivity improvement measures and intersectoral cooperation to control FLCs, and can therefore combat rangeland degradation.