eprintid: 10082501 rev_number: 25 eprint_status: archive userid: 608 dir: disk0/10/08/25/01 datestamp: 2019-10-02 10:52:56 lastmod: 2021-10-11 22:41:19 status_changed: 2019-10-02 10:52:56 type: article metadata_visibility: show creators_name: Tian, X creators_name: Bruckner, M creators_name: Geng, Y creators_name: Bleischwitz, R title: Trends and driving forces of China's virtual land consumption and trade ispublished: pub divisions: UCL divisions: B04 divisions: C04 divisions: F34 keywords: land footprint; input-output analysis; driving forces; virtual land trade; China note: This version is the author accepted manuscript. For information on re-use, please refer to the publisher’s terms and conditions. abstract: Land resources are important for China’s rapid economic development, especially for food and construction. China’s land resources are under tremendous pressures, and therefore land use is increasingly displaced to other parts of the world. This study analyses the evolution and driving forces of China’s land consumption from 1995 to 2015. The main results show that China’s land footprint increased from 8.8% of the global land resources under human use in 1995 to 15.7% in 2015. China’s domestic land resources are mainly used for serving domestic consumption. Moreover, China needs to import virtual land from foreign countries to satisfy 30.8% of its land demand. Among the three land use types of cropland, grassland and forests, grassland had the largest fraction in China’s land footprint from 1995 to 2000, while forest has become the largest one since 2000. China’s virtual land trade experienced a sharp increase in net imports from 9.4E + 04 km2 in 1995 to 3.4E + 06 km2 in 2015. Observing China’s virtual land network by a cluster analysis, this study concludes that China keeps tight relationships with Australia, Japan, Brazil and Korea for its cropland consumption, and Canada, USA, Mexico, Australia, Korea and Japan are relevant for its grassland consumption. In addition, decomposition analysis results show that affluence is the major driving factor for China’s land consumption, while changes in land use intensity could mitigate some of the related effects. Lastly, policy recommendations are proposed so that China can move toward sustainable land management. date: 2019-12 date_type: published official_url: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.landusepol.2019.104194 oa_status: green full_text_type: other language: eng primo: open primo_central: open_green verified: verified_manual elements_id: 1697482 doi: 10.1016/j.landusepol.2019.104194 lyricists_name: Bleischwitz, Raimund lyricists_id: RBLEI92 actors_name: Austen, Jennifer actors_id: JAUST66 actors_role: owner full_text_status: public publication: Land Use Policy volume: 89 article_number: 104194 issn: 0264-8377 citation: Tian, X; Bruckner, M; Geng, Y; Bleischwitz, R; (2019) Trends and driving forces of China's virtual land consumption and trade. Land Use Policy , 89 , Article 104194. 10.1016/j.landusepol.2019.104194 <https://doi.org/10.1016/j.landusepol.2019.104194>. Green open access document_url: https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10082501/3/Bleischwitz%20final%20editing%20version%2020190807.pdf