Study on Change of Quantity of Cultivated Land and Its Driving Forces in Sichuan Province in the Recent 15 Years

This paper takes the cultivated land in Sichuan Province as the research object based on the statistical data about cultivated land between 1995 and 2009, selects eight variable factors that affect change of the quantity of cultivated land, uses the principal component analysis to analyze the direct correlation between different factors, puts forward the two driving factors of economy and population and then sets up a binary regression model to make a quantitative analysis of the overall value of the principal component factors abstracted. The result shows that, the quantity of cultivated land in Sichuan Province has undergone a change process of slow reduction – sharp reduction – slow increase. Economic factor and population factor are the most important driving factors that affect change of quantity of cultivated land in Sichuan Province and they are both negatively correlated with change of cultivated land. The model shows that, the overall influences of these two types of driving forces are still constantly increasing, but influence of the economic driving force on cultivated land is weakened.