Spatiotemporal dynamics of cropland expansion and its driving factors in the Yangtze River Economic Belt: A nuanced analysis at the county scale

With rapid urbanization and population increase, cropland has received considerable attention worldwide as a key factor for global food security. To a certain extent, cropland expansion is an important step in maintaining cropland areas. However, research related to the spatiotemporal heterogeneity of cropland expansion and its driving factors remains scarce in the literature. Thus, this research used spatial autocorrelation analysis and the geographically and temporally weighted regression (GTWR) model to explore the spatiotemporal heterogeneity of cropland expansion and its driving factors in three time intervals (2000–2005, 2005–2010, and 2010–2015) at the county scale for the Yangtze River Economic Belt (YREB), one of the main areas for rice production in China. Specifically, we selected fifteen explanatory variables from the perspectives of socioeconomic development, environmental conditions, and cropland status. Results showed that the regions with large cropland expansion areas changed substantially with time but were mainly clustered in the middle of the research area. Additionally, although the degree of influence of the selected variables within each driving factor on cropland expansion differed across space and time, the variables of population, investment in fixed assets, digital elevation model (DEM), and cropland area were the factors that showed a decreasing positive effect on cropland expansion, while GDP in the primary industry, area of new construction land, public finance expenditure, total grain yield, area of a county, precipitation, accumulated temperature, organic matter, patch density, and division index had a significant positive effect on cropland expansion. This research can help decision-makers develop different cropland protection policies according to the situation of cropland expansion and its driving factors in different regions and thus promote sustainable development.