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• China's cropland abandonment rate peaked at 3.98% in 2016, showing four distinct phases. • Three patterns identified: long-term (≥10yr), progressive, and occasional abandonment. • High abandonment (>15%) is concentrated in mountainous regions while plains maintained rates below 5%. • Abandoned cropland caused peak potential grain losses of 23.8 million tonnes in 2010. Cropland abandonment significantly impacts food security and agricultural sustainability, yet comprehensive analyses of its dynamics in rapidly developing regions remain scarce. This study investigates the spatiotemporal patterns, labor migration influences, and food security implications of cropland abandonment in China from 1992 to 2022. Analysis reveals that abandonment evolved through four distinct phases: slow growth, rapid increase, high-level fluctuation peaking at 3.98% in 2016, and gradual decline. We further identified three primary abandonment patterns—single long-term (≥10 yr), progressive degradation, and occasional (3-9 yr)—with distinctive spatial distributions. Specifically, long-term abandonment is concentrated in the marginal agricultural areas of southwestern mountainous regions, while occasional abandonment is prevalent in the more economically developed eastern coastal areas, and progressive degradation patterns are found in the transitional zones between plains and mountains. Labor migration influenced abandonment non-linearly with distinct regional thresholds. Short-distance (within-county) migration reduced abandonment rates, while medium-distance (within-province) migration significantly increased them. Although 57.50% of abandonment occurred on low-suitability land, 42.50% affected high-suitability cropland, resulting in peak potential grain losses of 15.0 and 8.8 million tonnes for low and high suitability land respectively in 2010. These findings provide support for regionally differentiated land management strategies that integrate land suitability assessments, labor migration patterns, and local socioeconomic conditions to ensure agricultural sustainability.
Han et al. (Mon,) studied this question.