Estimation of the Impacts of Land System Change on Land Productivity in the North China Plain

Land resources are multifunctional natural resources, which are under continuously growing demand due to population growth and socioeconomic development (Lin and Ho, 2003; Veldkamp and Verburg, 2004; Dent et al., 2006). This is particularly apparent in China where the economy is rapidly developing and land resources are undergoing unprecedented change in land use due to pressure from the demand (Ash and Edmonds, 1998; Liu et al., 2004). The structural change and succession patterns in the land system will undoubtedly lead to changes in the suitability and quality of types of land use patterns, and may directly influence land productivity (de Koning et al., 1999; Seto et al., 2000; Deng, 2008a). In discussions about “Who will feed China” and the global food security crisis, the issue of land resource loss has aroused broad concern at all levels of government. Therefore, structural change in the land system and changes in land productivity resulting from land use succession patterns have become one of the focuses of present academic research (Fischer and Sun, 2001; Jonathan et al., 2005; Deng et al., 2006).