Discussion on the Index of Appraisal on Constructive Land of China During Urbanization

Analyzing the significance of urbanization and land use problem of China in urbanization process, we find that scientific and rational urbanization is not a threaten to arable land, on the contrary, it is a effective way to enhance land use efficiency and protect arable land, as the higher urbanization level is, the more intensive the land use is. The paper analyzes the problem and characteristics of land use in China. Firstly, rural settlement area is five times larger than the urban area in China, and the rural settlement could provide large space for urban expansion, as per capita urban land is much less than the per capita rural settlement. Secondly, land use degree in urban areas of China is 10 percent of that of global average level. So the ultimate way to resolve the problem of insufficient land resource during urbanization is to increase land use intensity. Thirdly, urbanization will speed up scale arable land management, so as to improve agriculture land use utility. Therefore, scientific and rational urbanization will not threaten arable land but improve land use intensity. In order to direct rational urbanization so as to weakening the contradiction between urban expansion and arable land decreasing, the land use urbanization index (LUUI) is defined and testified in the end of the paper. LUUI=(urban land +industrial land in rural area +traffic land)/(rural settlement land). The Pearson Correlation between LUUI and PUI (population urbanization index) is R~2=0.826~*.The result indicates that LUUI can well express the urbanization degree from the land use point of view. The cluster analysis of PUI and LUUI suggests that some high industrialization areas don't mean high urbanization, because the people who work in industry and live in town are still agricultural population and they could keep their rural settlement when they live in town. In the end of the paper, the authors bring forward that rational urbanization is not due to expansion of construction land, but rational structure and intensive use of construction land.