Research on driving forces for rural settlement land changes in China

During the rapid urbanization period, the contradiction between demand for the construction land and the preservation of cultivated land for food security is getting more and more serious in China. With the urbanization the rural settlement land is increasing instead of decreasing. This paper aims at finding the driving forces for rural settlement land expansion. Based on land use change survey data (1996-2006) by the Ministry. of Land and Resources P. R. C., this paper finds that per capita area for rural settlement land is more than per capita area for city township and industrial land in each province except Tibet. Besides, rural settlement land area and per capita rural settlement land area are increasing while the rural population is decreasing in most provinces. The main problems of rural settlement land use are low efficiency, high vacancy rate, chaotic layout and illegal occupancy. Then the driving forces for rural settlement land expansion, including economic development family income, family scale, psychological factors, urbanization, transportation, lack of planning, limited circulation of dwelling-house land and imperfect social security, are explored based on above analysts. Finally, policy recommendations, in view of different influencing factors, are put forward to control the disorder expansion of rural settlement land.