Scenario-Based Analysis of Land Use Competition and Sustainable Land Development in Zhangye of the Heihe River Basin, China

The Effect of the Comprehensive Reform of Agricultural Water Prices on Farmers' Planting Structure in the Oasis-Desert Transition Zone-A Case Study of the Heihe River Basin

The comprehensive reform of agricultural water prices is an important policy for promoting the high-quality sustainable development of agriculture and ensuring national water security. In this study, based on farmer survey data from different water price policy implementation areas in the oasis-desert transition zone of the Heihe River Basin (HRB), crops are divided into high-water-consuming crops and low-water-consuming crops based on the average water consumption per hm². The content of this study consists of two main parts: first, the study explores the response of farmers to different agricultural water price policies by comparing the impact of uniform water price and tiered water price policies on their planting structure. Second, it studies the areas where the tiered water price policy is implemented to verify the impact of price signals on farmers' production decisions. The results show that, compared with the uniform water price policy, the implementation of the tiered water price policy will significantly reduce the proportion of high-water-consuming crops planted when other conditions remain unchanged. Under the tiered water price policy, the increase in water prices will reduce the proportion of farmers planting high-water-consuming crops, but the difference is not significant. This result reveals that when the opportunity cost of irrigation water increases, farmers will increase the proportion of low-water-consuming crops. The findings also indicate that a higher educational level, improved land inflow, the number of crop types, and satisfaction with the current subsidy policy will help increase the proportion of low-water-consuming crops. However, an increase in the family-cultivated land area will reduce the area of low-water-consuming crops.

Exploring the nexus between land use land cover (LULC) changes and population growth in a planned city of islamabad and unplanned city of Rawalpindi, Pakistan

For the last three decades, Islamabad - a planned city, and Rawalpindi - an unplanned city, have experienced massive land use and land cover changes. The main objective of this study was a comparative assessment and quantification of LULC changes in relation to population growth and urbanization from 1990 to 2021 with the help of satellite imagery and population data in planned and unplanned cities. For classification four land-use land cover classes: built-up, vegetation, bare land, and water were selected. Maximum likelihood algorithm and confusion matrix were employed for classification and accuracy assessment. Results revealed that built-up increased from 5.7% (52 km²) to 25.7% (233 km²) and 3.7% (60 km²) to 14.1% (228 km²) from 1990 to 2021 for Islamabad and Rawalpindi, respectively. Wherein the bare land decreased from 42.2% (382 km²) to 18.1% (164 km²) in Islamabad and 65.5% (1058 km²) to 32.1% (518 km²) in Rawalpindi. Vegetation showed an increment of 4.7% for Islamabad and 24.5% for Rawalpindi. Surface water bodies decreased in both study areas. Population growth showed a strong positive correlation with the built-up class and a strong negative correlation with the bare land class for both cities. The outcomes of this study may be helpful in policymaking for better planning and management of land use land cover and urban sprawl in the context of sustainable development goals.