Quantifying recent trends in multifaceted cropland intensification in China: Cropping intensity, land productivity, and their effects on farmer livelihoods

Assessing changes in the extent and intensity of cropland use is essential to understanding the processes underlying agricultural development. However, our knowledge of the spatiotemporal dynamics of cropland intensification, and how they connect to the livelihoods of rural households, is currently limited. This paper aims to quantify key components of cropland intensification in China through trend analysis of cropping intensity and land productivity over time. This information is then used to model the effects of cropland intensification on farmers' livelihoods. We found that most croplands were under intensive use characterized by steady cropping frequency or multi-cropping from 2001 to 2018, while the variation in cropping frequency exhibited a significant north-south spatial disparity. High cropping intensity increased land productivity. However, over 25% of the total cropland area experienced productivity improvements that were characterized as inconsistent. Our work suggests that the economic output of farming is greatly driven by land management intensity and that fertilizer use is the predominant driver of this. We also found that cropping intensity at the landscape scale showed no correlation with agricultural income, but land productivity correlated significantly with both land management intensity and rural livelihood metrics. The findings presented here highlight the importance of integrating the long-term consistency of land productivity and rural livelihoods into the research framework of land use intensification. Doing so advances the current understanding of diverse cropland use change in China.