Towards cultivated land multifunction assessment in China: Applying the “influencing factors-functions-products-demands” integrated framework

Cultivated land multifunction, defined as the private and public goods and services provided by the land uses, is usually developed based on the interaction between the cultivated land system and human activities, which can satisfy human demand. Additionally, functional products can be depicted as the visible and quantitative outcomes of cultivated land multifunction. This paper assessed the cultivated land multifunction by applying the "influencing factors-functions-products-demands" integrated framework. In the assessment of the cultivated land multifunction from the product perspective at the multilevel, various results have been drawn, which refer to: there are five categories of functions, i.e., production function, economic function, ecological function, social security function, and cultural landscape function. Moreover, the unbalanced development patterns of each function caused the spatial differentiation of cultivated land multifunction at the multilevel, that is, along with the more inferior and complex physical geography and economic location comes the decline trend of multifunction intensity. Normally, in the plain areas, the multifunction has been fully realized because of the high-quality and relative abundance of cultivated land resources, whereas the small-scale and fragmentation of land parcels, as well as the environmental degradation, have restricted the multifunctionality, especially for production and ecological functions. To cope with this, strategies based on cultivated land multifunction management (including functional enhancement and functional conversion) should be adopted by planners and policy-makers in these areas. The findings of our paper may contribute to appropriate policy-making for cultivated land consolidation, as well as be an effective tool to achieve land use multifunctionality and rural sustainable development.