Quantification and driving mechanism of cultivated land fragmentation under scale differences

• Published in: Ecological informatics 2023-12, Vol.78, p.102336, Article 102336
• Main Authors: Zhou, Yanru, Xu, Kaiji, Feng, Zhe, Wu, Kening
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Cultivated land fragmentation; Multiple geographically weighted regressions model; Scale differences; Yangtze River Delta region
• ISSN: 1574-9541
• DOI: 10.1016/j.ecoinf.2023.102336

Cultivated land fragmentation (CLF) has received widespread attention, which often leads to increased planting costs, the excessive use of agricultural chemicals, and hinders agricultural mechanization and modernization. This study investigated the severity of CLF in the Yangtze River Delta region (YRD), one of China's economic growth poles, where land use conflict is prominent. First, the cultivated land fragmentation index (CLFI) was calculated and visualized on a grid scale of 15 km and an administrative scale of counties. Second, the variance inflation factor was analyzed to verify collinearity of six potential drivers, which were gross domestic product density (GD), population density (PD), road density (RD), Slope, Elevation and Precipitation. Finally, multiple geographically weighted regressions (MGWR) were applied to explore driving mechanisms of CLF on two different scales, and their differences have been fully demonstrated. The results showed that the average value of CLFI on the grid scale was 0.32, which was lower than 0.36 on the county scale. There were also significant differences in the spatial distribution of CLFI on the two scales. Among the driving factors under two scales, PD had the largest variance inflation factor (VIF), with a value of 8.142 (