Abstract:
Abstract: Cultivated land is a type of fundamental and strategic resources for China. Therefore, cultivated land protection has become China's national strategy. Along with the economic development and the population increase, the occupation of cultivated land for urban construction purpose has been an inevitable tendency. The understanding about the value loss associated with the continuous diminution of cultivated land resource, and the corresponding compensation mechanism, has become critical for land conservation. This paper constructed a land-value-evaluation model, which was based on cultivated land value classification, integrating income capitalization method, equivalent substitution approach, and market value method. By using of this model, we estimated cultivated land protection values for 31 provinces/municipalities in mainland China. Further, by use of GIS techniques, the spatial characteristics for the cultivated lands' protection values over the entire country were quantitatively described. Then, the simulated compensation mechanism for cultivated land conversion was established. Such work offered innovative approaches for structuring the cultivated land protection policies and regional compensation mechanisms for cultivated land conversion. The results indicated that there was a significant regional difference associated with the cultivated land protection values. The highest value, 185.21×104 Yuan RMB/hm2, was at the Beijing city; while the lowest value, 44.61×104 Yuan RMB/hm2, was at Qinghai province. The former was 4.2 times of the latter. Second, there were certain spatial characteristics associated with the distribution of cultivated land protection values over the 31 provinces/municipalities in China. In detail, the economic values showed a tendency that the higher values were at Northeast/East regions while the West regions had the lower values. Such tendency was related with the different levels of economic development and conditions for agricultural production in different regions. But the social values showed a different tendency that higher values were at Middle/West regions. This tendency was resulted from the influences by the population, the natural conditions of cultivated land recourses, and the levels of socioeconomic development in different regions. Specifically, the pattern for the areas with high basic guarantee value, which was a specific type of social values, was relatively scattered. It was majorly related with the level of the area per capita of cultivated land resource in different regions. The employment security value, which was another specific type of social values, showed a tendency that was higher at the West while lower at the East. This was significantly influenced by the levels of socioeconomic development and the difference in resource endowment. The areas with high social stability value, which was the third type of social values, showed a scatter pattern as well. This was majorly resulted from the total amount of cultivated land and the levels of grain production in different regions. The ecologic service value presented a different spatial tendency that the higher values emerged at the Southeast regions while the North and Northwest regions possessed lower values. This tendency can be explained by the regions' natural ecological environments. Third, according to the regional compensation mechanism for cultivated land conversion established in this research, the central government, as one of the cultivated land protection agents, shall pay 26764.068×108 Yuan RMB to all the provinces/municipalities in the year of 2012. Such payment shall be used for protecting the cultivated land for holding its functions such as social stability and ecological service. This approximately takes 5.15% of national GDP in that year. In detail, the sum of the benefits loss for cultivated land protection and the costs for the compensation of cultivated land conversion was 10.907×108 Yuan RMB, 10.283×108 Yuan RMB, 74.680×108 Yuan RMB, 66.495×108 Yuan RMB, and 8.529×108 Yuan RMB for Shanghai city, Anhui province, Guangdong province, Guangxi province, and Ningxia province, respectively. Based on this theoretical model constructed in this paper, the benefits/costs of cultivated land conversion become a critical factor in the process between the central and local governments. The research also provides the theoretical and practical reference for a conversion of cultivated land protection mechanism, which will be good for land management in China.