ABSTRACT
The processes associated with climate change are very relevant for China since the country is highly dependent on climate and is susceptible to climate change (Smit and Cai 1996). One area is agriculture and hence land-use. The impact of climate change on agriculture has been part of a national key project (National Climate Centre 2000, Song et al. 2006). Apart from the impact related to a changing climate, China’s economic success has draw attention to the changes in the environment, including land-use, agriculture and hence food production (Zhao et al. 2005). During the last decades, several large scale land-use policies have been
The Shaanxi province covers 205 600 km2 in northern inland China between 31°45’-39°35’N and 105°29’-111°15’E, approximately 2% of the total country. Climate and topography divide the province into three distinct regions: the semi-arid Loess Plateau in the north, the warmtemperate central plain and the sub-tropical region south of the Qinling Mountains (Zhao 1986); which influences land-use. The main land-use in the north is characterized by grassland, rainfed-summer crops and sparse woods. Moving to the central area, irrigated croplands, mainly winter wheat and maize, are dominating. In the south, the main crops are maize, wheat, and rice in combination with economic forest, sparse woods and mixed needle-and deciduous broad-leaved types (Zhao 1986, IIASA 2001). The province is inhabited by 37 million unevenly distributed people, with the greatest density in the central most industrialized part
implemented causing changes in land-use and hence, land-cover (Hu 1997, McElroy et al. 1998, Skinner et al. 2001). The latest of these reforms, Slope Land Conversation Programme, started in full force in 2000 and Shaanxi (Fig. 1) has been the province converting the greatest amount of land area as a result of this policy (Xu et al. 2006).
