A novel framework to integrate cropland quantity and quality from pixel to county level: Implications for requisition-compensation balance of farmland policy in China

Cropland quantity and quality are two important indicators for determining agricultural production. However, few studies integrate them at the pixel level for a comprehensive assessment of food production potential. Consequently, it is hard to evaluate the implementation effectiveness of China's Requisition-Compensation Balance of Farmland (RCBF) policy, which requires balances in cropland quality and quantity for land exploitation. Here, we presented a novel framework to assess the impacts of cropland change on food production potential by combining cropland quantity and quality from pixel to county level. The cropland quantity was defined as cropland gain or loss calculated by 30-m land cover datasets, while cropland quality was characterized by the integration of climate, terrain, and soil factors using a fuzzy comprehensive evaluation method. Then, nine distinct patterns, reflecting the interdependence between changed cropland area and production potential, were identified to represent the implementation effectiveness of RCBF policy for each county. Results showed cropland area decreased by 1.85% during 2005-2015 in Hubei Province, which mainly occurred in regions with moisture climate and very flat terrain. A majority of croplands with the best soil fertility remained relatively stable during this period. The pattern "more occupation than compensation" was the dominant way of implementing RCBF in Hubei. Four counties positively responded to RCBF, for which the compensatory croplands had superior quality than occupied croplands. This study presented an efficient way to evaluate the impacts of cropland change on agricultural production potential, which provides valuable insights for researchers and decision-makers to strengthen practices and improve policies for land reclamation and consolidation.