Liu Yansui, Ou Cong, Liu Yaqun, Cao Zhi, Robinson Guy M, Li Xunhuan
Faculty of Geographical Science and Engineering, Henan University, Zhengzhou 450046, China; Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, China.
Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, China.
Sci Bull (Beijing). 2025 May 30;70(10):1699-1709. doi: 10.1016/j.scib.2024.12.054. Epub 2025 Mar 17.
The world has experienced a rapid expansion of human settlements in both urban and rural areas in recent decades, yet the unequal impacts of this construction on global food security remain unclear. In this study, we delineated the global-scale expansion of urban-rural settlements at a fine resolution from 1985 to 2020 and quantified their uneven impacts on food security, focusing on the relationships between settlement types, cropland categories, and disparities in crop production. Our results showed that despite dramatic urbanization, rural settlements still constituted the majority of human settlement areas in 2020. Globally, cropland loss due to the expansion of rural settlements was 1.2 times greater than that caused by urbanization, while the associated yield loss was 1.5 times higher. Notably, urban-rural settlement expansion in Asia accounted for 61% of cropland loss and 64% of yield loss. Moreover, future scenarios predicted that Asia's urban-rural settlement expansion will continue to have the most significant impacts on the loss of cropland and yield throughout the 2030s. These results provide systematic evidence of the unequal impacts of urban-rural settlement construction on global cropland and food security.
近几十年来，全球城乡地区的人类住区迅速扩张，但这种建设对全球粮食安全的不平等影响仍不明确。在本研究中，我们以高分辨率描绘了1985年至2020年全球范围内城乡住区的扩张情况，并量化了它们对粮食安全的不均衡影响，重点关注住区类型、耕地类别与作物生产差异之间的关系。我们的结果表明，尽管城市化进程迅猛，但2020年农村住区仍占人类住区面积的大部分。在全球范围内，农村住区扩张导致的耕地流失比城市化造成的耕地流失多1.2倍，而相关的产量损失则高出1.5倍。值得注意的是，亚洲的城乡住区扩张占耕地流失的61%和产量损失的64%。此外，未来情景预测，在整个2030年代，亚洲的城乡住区扩张将继续对耕地和产量损失产生最显著的影响。这些结果为城乡住区建设对全球耕地和粮食安全的不平等影响提供了系统证据。
