Ecological Indicators 139 (2022) 108926

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Ecological Indicators
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/ecolind

Social-ecological system changes in China from 1990 to 2018

Cao Mengxue a, Lu Xiaoyan b, Qin Zhangxuan b, Liu Xiaolin b, Li Fei b, *
a
College of Mathematics and Physics, Geomathematics Key Laboratory of Sichuan Province, Chengdu University of Technology, Chengdu 610059, China
b
College of Urban and Environmental Sciences, Shaanxi Key Laboratory of Earth Surface System and Environmental Carrying Capacity, Northwest University, Xi’an
710127, China

A R T I C L E I N F O A B S T R A C T

Keywords: Social-ecological systems provide a comprehensive scientific framework for understanding the complex processes
Social-ecological system and interactions between natural and human systems. However, system analysis with assumptions of reduc­
Transition pathways ibility, linear trade-offs or synergies and separability, and methods to detect social-ecological system transitions
Food production
from time series are not sufficient to deal with the challenges of sustainable development. The interpretation of
Ecological service
Human activity
the spatial pattern is a potentially powerful choice for understanding social-ecological system transitions.
Therefore, this study mapped social-ecological system archetypes by combining dominant function identification
and K-means clustering methods. Results showed that Food Production Space, Economic Development Space and
Ecological Service Space constituted the main archetypes of social-ecological systems, which covered about
8.7%, 1% and 78.1% of China respectively in 2018. Ecological-Food Space, Food-Economic Space, and
Economic-Ecological Space reflected the key areas and hotspots for social-ecological system transitions, char­
acterized by Economic Development Space expansion, Food Production Space reconstruction and Ecological
Service Space contraction. Between 1990 and 2018, about 10.6% of the social-ecological system underwent
transformation, mainly manifested in the transition of Food Production Space into Food-Economic Space (4.37
Mha) and Ecological-Food Space (8.34 Mha), and in the transition of Food-Economic Space to Food Production
Space (9.16 Mha) and Economic Development Space (4.19 Mha). The pathways of social-ecological system
transitions were mainly affected by factors such as institution, policy, capital, location, technology, population,
cognition, and culture. These factors drove social-ecological system transitions through the mechanisms of
community crisis response and individual interest induction. It suggested that sustainable development efforts
should be focused on limiting the increase in driving factors that may weaken the critical feedback process,
thereby maintaining the stability of the desired social-ecological systems.

1. Introduction The social-ecological systems are composed of many smaller coupled

Many key sustainability challenges faced by human systems and
natural systems are closely intertwined in time and space (Turner et al.,
2003; Liu et al., 2015; Grêt-Regamey et al., 2019). The human system
will affect the natural system, and the natural system will also feedback
to affect the human system (Balázsi et al., 2019; Wood & Jones, 2019;
Yin et al., 2020). Human systems and natural systems evolve more
dynamically and become more complex under the influence of global
changes (Liu et al., 2007; Chen & Liu, 2014; An et al., 2005; Thorn et al.,
2020). Solutions usually require integrated methods that can simulta­
neously incorporate human and natural factors and determine system-
level management strategies and priorities (Wu et al., 2020; Steger
et al., 2021).
systems, which are linked to each other and evolve into a set of inter­
connected complex adaptive systems over time (Ostrom, 2009; Liu et al.,
2015). Social-ecological systems provide a comprehensive scientific
framework for understanding the processes and complex interactions
between natural and human systems (Epstein et al., 2020; Zhao et al.,
2021). In social-ecological systems, as humans’ influence on nature
continues to grow, nature’s influence on humans and humans’ aware­
ness of these effects and efforts to mitigate these effects are also
increasing (Mooney et al., 2013; Guerrero et al., 2018). Social-ecological
systems have the characteristics of nonlinear interaction, and the
coupling between human and natural systems usually introduces further
nonlinearity (Bauch et al., 2016; Filatova et al., 2016). System analysis
with underlying assumptions of reducibility, linear trade-offs or

* Corresponding author.
E-mail address: lifei@nwu.edu.cn (L. Fei).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolind.2022.108926
Received 23 March 2022; Received in revised form 20 April 2022; Accepted 26 April 2022
Available online 30 April 2022
1470-160X/© 2022 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-
nc-nd/4.0/).
C. Mengxue et al. Ecological Indicators 139 (2022) 108926

synergies, and separability (considering human and nature as two ecological services were the basic needs of the sustainable development
interactive components of a coupled system) is not sufficient to deal with of human society, and there were different degrees of trade-offs and
the challenges of sustainable development (Srinivasan et al., 2013; synergy between them. Human society coordinated the trade-offs and
Edwards et al., 2019; Gain et al., 2020). The characteristics, behaviors, synergy through factors such as institutional reform, policy adjustment,
and trajectories of complex social-ecological systems cannot be deter­ capital investment, location improvement, technology advances, popu­
mined only by the subsystems and their characteristics. Therefore, sys­ lation migration, cognitive shift, and cultural diffusion, leading to the
tem analysis should focus on the macroscopic mode with new attributes transitions of social-ecological systems (Fig. 1). Human society includes
that social-ecological systems present under the interaction between stakeholders such as government management departments, land-use
humans and nature (Reyers et al., 2018). The nonlinearity and rights holders (farmers, enterprises), and users of ecological services.
complexity of social-ecological systems require system analysis to shift Different stakeholders have different needs for the functions that the
from integration theory to generation theory. That is, to first integrate social-ecological system can provide. Ecological service users want to
the elements into the system as a whole, and then to discuss the evo­ obtain as many ecosystem services as possible through paid or unpaid
lution and transition of the system (Li et al., 2020a). methods, such as high temperature regulation, air purification, and
As nonlinear dynamic systems, social-ecological systems exhibit landscape aesthetics. Land use rights holders pay more attention to
state transitions, from a stable balance to another stable balance (Bauch maximizing their own interests, and the way of land use is determined
et al., 2016; Maja et al., 2019). Determining the evolutionary stage and according to the benefits they can obtain. The main responsibility of the
the driving force for long-term transitions of social-ecological systems is government management department is to coordinate the relationship
essential for successful future system management (Fedele et al., 2019; between economic development, food security and ecological security,
Wu et al., 2020). Social-ecological system transition is defined as and reduce the trade-offs between different functions. The management
fundamentally changing the structure, function, feedback and attributes department adjusts the land use patterns by formulating policies and
of the system (O’Brien, 2012; Moore et al., 2014). However, methods to systems, innovating concepts and technologies. The land use decision of
detect social-ecological system transitions from time series often require farmers or enterprises will also be affected by the preference of
long-term data with high time resolution (Wandersee et al., 2012; ecological service users for a certain ecosystem service. By changing the
Müller et al., 2014; Filatova et al., 2016). The schema of the spatial landscape of the land to attract more ecological service users for paid
pattern can carry more information than a single point in the time series. use, they can obtain benefits. According to the different dominant
Therefore, the interpretation of the spatial pattern is a potentially functions, the social-ecological system can be divided into different
powerful choice for understanding social-ecological system transitions types. The needs and trade-offs of the stakeholders for the functions of
(Scheffer et al., 2012; Hamann et al., 2015; Rocha et al., 2020). the social-ecological system led to the change of the dominant functions,
Since 1990, China’s economy has developed rapidly and the process and the social-ecological system undergoes a subsequent transition.
of urbanization has accelerated. Due to the high degree of spatial
overlap between urbanized areas and high-quality arable land, newly- 3. Data and methods
added construction land is mainly converted from arable land. In
order to ensure food security, about 5.5 million hectares of grassland 3.1. Data source
and woodland have been reclaimed as arable land. At the same time, due
to the construction of ecological projects such as returning farmland to The data used in this research mainly included meteorological data,
forest and grassland, more than 1 million hectares of arable land has soil data, topographic data, land use data, population, economy and
been converted into woodland and grassland. It can be seen that the
intensification of human activities such as economic development,
urban expansion, agricultural reclamation, and ecological engineering
has led to a profound transition of China’s social-ecological system on a
local scale.
Social-ecological system transition is not only determined by internal
regime shift, but also limited by its status and role in higher-level sys­
tems. Social-ecological system transition research based on time series
focuses on the internal regime shift of the system, and it is difficult to
show the archetype differences before and after the transition. The
current mapping of social-ecological system archetypes based on static
data lacks analysis of changes in the spatial pattern of social-ecological
systems, and the time points corresponding to many indicators were
inconsistent. Therefore, this study first integrated the indicators into the
spatial pattern of the social-ecological system in 1990 and 2018. Then,
identified social-ecological system archetypes by interpreting the fused
images, and explored the characteristics of social-ecological system
transitions by analyzing the changes in social-ecological systems spatial
pattern. It aimed to solve the following issues:
(i) How many social-ecological system archetypes are there in
China?
(ii) what are the characteristics of social-ecological system
transitions?
This can help to better understand the interaction and feedback be­
tween different biophysical and social components, and formulate better
policies and spatially explicit solutions that suitable for a certain region.
Fig. 1. Analysis framework for social-ecological system transition. The color
gradient one-way arrows indicate the transition pathways between Economic
2. Analysis framework of social-ecological system transitions Development Space, Food Production Space and Ecological Service Space.
Yellow two-way arrows represent trade-offs or synergy between
Population carrying, economic output, food production and different functions.

2
C. Mengxue et al. Ecological Indicators 139 (2022) 108926

other related statistical data. All data were spatially explicitly expressed
as raster data with a resolution of 1 km × 1 km (Table 1). The climate
data was downloaded from the China Meteorological Science Data
Sharing Service Network (https://data.cma.cn/site/index.html),
included monthly precipitation, mean maximum temperature, mean
minimum temperature, mean wind speed, mean relative humidity, wet
day frequency and total solar radiation in 1990 and 2018. Soil data,
included soil type, soil composition, soil depth, soil water holding ca­
pacity and other attributes, was obtained from 1:1 million National Soil
Data Set (https://vdb3.soil.csdb.cn/). Terrain data was obtained from
Digital Elevation Model (DEM) data that were provided by the U.S.
Space Shuttle Radar Topography Mission (SRTM). The land use data
came from the Land Use Remote Sensing Monitoring Database of China
at the Resource and Environmental Data Cloud Platform (https://www.
resdc.cn). The database contains six types of land use (cultivated land,
woodland, grassland, water, construction land and unused land) with a
resolution of 1 km × 1 km. Demographic and economic data were
mainly obtained from the Resource and Environmental Data Cloud
Platform (https://www.resdc.cn) and China Statistical Yearbook
(1990–2018) (http://tongji.cnki.net/kns55/Navi/NaviDefault.aspx).
China was divided into several 10 km × 10 km grids, and the food
production capacity, ecosystem service value and human activity in­
tensity of each grid were calculated according to the calculation method
below.
3.2. Food production capacity
service function. The ecosystem service values (ESV) for a certain grid
was calculated by.
∑
ESV = (ESVk × Areak )/Area
ESVk was the ecosystem service value provided by land use k and was
calculated according to Table 2, Areak was the area of land use k in the
grid, Area was the total area of the grid.
3.4. Human activity intensity
Human disturbance and influence on nature can be reflected by
population density and economic density. Therefore, the human activity
intensity (HAI) evaluation model was established as fellow:
HAI = (POP + 1)α × (GDP + 1)β − 1
POP and GDP were the population density and economic density,
respectively. α and β reflected the importance of population and econ­
omy to HAI, α + β = 1. In this study, population and economy were
considered to be equally important, so α = β = 0.5. According to this
evaluation model, the human activity intensity on each grid was
calculated. In order to verify the rationality of the evaluation results of
human activity intensity, the relationship between human activity in­
tensity and land use, altitude, and slope was explored. The results
showed that the human activity intensity had a significant correlation
with the three (p less than 0.05), indicated that the human activity in­
tensity evaluation model was reasonable (Fig. 2).

The Global Agro-ecological Zone model (GAEZ) was used to estimate

3.5. Mapping social-ecological systems
the food production capacity (FPC). GAEZ was a large-scale land pro­
ductivity model developed jointly by Food and Agriculture Organization
Population carrying, economic output, food production and ecolog­
of the United Nations (FAO) and International Institute for Applied
ical services are the basic needs for the sustainable development of
Systems Analysis (IIASA). It firstly estimated the climatological suit­
human society. Human society meets its basic needs by using, trans­
ability of a crop based on climatic conditions, and then calculated the
forming and adapting to natural systems, and natural systems feedback
crop potential yield by using a progressively limiting method. For the
humans’ interference and influence to human society. Spatially het­
detailed computation process of GAEZ, please refer to Global Agro-
erogeneous social-ecological systems were generated in the process of
ecological Zones (IIASA/FAO, 2010). GAEZ model had been widely
coupling between human society and natural systems. The spatial het­
used in the world, especially in developing countries, because of the
erogeneity mainly came from the difference in the functional structure
availability of basic data, the simplicity of the calculation process and
caused by different human activity intensity. For example, urban sys­
the results can well reflect the multi-year average status of regional crop
tems with the strongest human activities took population carrying and
potential yield (Fischer & Sun, 2001; Fischer et al., 2006). The appli­
economic output as main functions. However, farmland systems, whose
cability of the GAEZ model in China had been extensively verified and
primary function was food production, was less disturbed by human
related parameters had been revised (Xu et al., 2017; Li et al., 2020b).
activities than that of urban systems. Human activities had the lowest
disturbance to the forest landscape with the primary function of
3.3. Ecosystem service values ecological service. Therefore, social-ecological systems can be classified
according to the functional structure of the systems.
In order to achieve the overall expression of different ecosystem The functional structure of a system was not only affected by the
services except food production, the monetary value of ecosystem ser­ absolute value of the function in local, but also determined by the
vices was used instead of biophysical value to represent the ecological relative value of the function in the entire region. Drawing lessons from
the bands synthesis method in remote sensing science, different func­
Table 1 tions were used as input bands to describe the spatial pattern of social-
Brief introduction of the data set used in this study. ecological systems. Considering the high spatial correlation between
Dataset Initial Data source After data processing population carrying (reflected by population density) and economic
data output (reflected by GDP), the two functions were integrated into
Data Spatial Temporal
type
type resolution resolution human activity intensity as the red band. Ecosystem service value and
food production capacity were input as green band and blue band
Climate data Point https://data. Raster 1 km × 1 1990/
cma.cn/site/i km 2018
respectively. In this way, the spatial pattern of social-ecological systems
ndex.html synthesized by human activity intensity, ecosystem service value and
Soil data Polygon https://vdb3. Raster 1 km × 1 2012 food production capacity can be obtained (Fig. 3).
soil.csdb.cn/ km Firstly, social-ecological system archetypes were identified by per­
DEM data Raster https://srtm. Raster 1 km × 1 2008
forming K-means clustering on the spatial pattern of social-ecological
csi.cgiar.org km
Land use Polygon https://www. Raster 1 km × 1 1990/ systems shown in Fig. 3. The Calinski-Harabasz Values (CH) was used
resdc.cn km 2018 to evaluate the optimal number of clusters. The larger the CH, the more
Demographic Raster https://www. Raster 1 km × 1 1990/ reasonable and effective the cluster classification was. The test results
& economic resdc.cn km 2018 showed that when the number of clusters is eight, the CH reached the
data
maximum (Fig. S2). Therefore, eight types of social-ecological system

3
C. Mengxue et al. Ecological Indicators 139 (2022) 108926

Table 2
The value of ecosystem services provided by different land use in China (yuan/ha) (Adapted from Xie et al., 2015).
Land use Cultivated land Woodland Grassland Water Construction land Unused land

ESV 8019.865 113943.9 26247.67 209853.9 1403.172 6670.3633

low ecological functions, medium ecological functions, and high

ecological functions. Therefore, eight social-ecological system arche­
types based on dominant functions were obtained (Table S1).
Finally, the K-means clustering results and the dominant function
identification results were comprehensively compared (Figure S1). For
the grids that were inconsistent between the two, its archetype type was
judged according to the principle of spital proximity. Therefore, social-
ecological systems of 1990 and 2018 in China were identified and
named.

4. Results

4.1. Social-ecological system archetypes

Archetypes were increasingly used as a methodological approach to

Fig. 2. Human activity intensity on different land uses, elevations and slopes.
archetypes were identified (Fig. S3).
Secondly, by analyzing the dominant factor of each grid (when the
index value of a certain factor of the grid was greater than the mean
value of three factors, this factor was called the dominant factor), a total
of six types of dominant factors were found. That is, human activity
intensity, food production capacity, ecosystem service value, food pro­
duction capacity-human activity intensity, human activity intensity-
ecosystem service value, ecosystem service value-food production ca­
pacity. Referring to the K-means clustering results, the ecological
function-dominated archetypes were subdivided into three categories:
reveal patterns of factors and processes that repeatedly shape social-
ecological systems in different locations and at different times
(Magliocca et al., 2019; Oberlack et al., 2019). These patterns help
improve the understanding of global concerns, including vulnerability,
land management, food security, and governance (Sietz et al., 2019).
The social-ecological system archetypes referred to in this study repre­
sented patterns of human activity intensity, ecological conditions, and
food production capacity that appear repeatedly across the terrestrial
earth surface in China.
Eight types of social-ecological systems were identified, and named
according the dominant function of social-ecological systems: Economic
Development Space, Food Production Space, Low Ecological Service
Space, Middle Ecological Service Space, High Ecological Service Space,
Ecological-Food Space, Food-Economic Space and Economic-Ecological
Space. The final map of social-ecological systems in China revealed a
clustered pattern of human-nature interactions (Figs. 4 and 5).
Economic Development Space referred to a system in which human
beings live and produce secondary and tertiary industry products. It had
the highest population density and economic output level, with the
strongest human-nature interactions and mainly distributed in coastal
areas of China. Because of the good natural environmental conditions,
there were not only frequent human activities, but also high food pro­
duction capacity (Fig. 5). The land use was mainly construction land
(3.29 Mha) and farmland (3.53 Mha). The economic density and pop­
ulation density of the Economic Development Space were 2975 thou­
sand yuan/ha and 28.47 people/ha respectively, which were much
higher than other social-ecological systems. Humans had an impact on
nature through activities such as industrial production, residential live,
and infrastructure construction. However, due to the high concentration
of population and lack of natural ecosystems, it was extremely vulner­
able to the reaction of natural disasters (air pollution, extreme high
temperature, urban floods, etc.).
Food Production Space took food supply as the dominant function and
concentrated in the Northeast China Plain, the North China Plain and the
Sichuan Basin where the terrain was flat, the soil quality and climatic
conditions were suitable for crop growth. The area of Food Production
Space accounted for 8.7% of China’s land area, and the type of land use
was dominated by cultivated land (60.92 Mha). Although the interaction
between human and nature was weaker than that of Economic Devel­
opment Space, it was easy to transform to Economic Development Space
under the influence of human activities. Human activities were domi­
nated by crop cultivation, such as irrigation, pesticide spraying, and
fertilization in the agricultural production process can increase food
production. However, it often brings backlash from nature, such as soil
compaction, water pollution, arable land desertification, and landslides.

4
C. Mengxue et al. Ecological Indicators 139 (2022) 108926

Fig. 3. Spatial pattern of social-ecological systems synthesized by human activity intensity (HAI, red band), ecosystem service value (ESV, green band) and food
production capacity (FPC, blue band), data referred to 2018. The resolution of the fused image was 10 km × 10 km. The colored boxes on the bottom represent
typical social-ecological system archetypes, the value in the box is the relative magnitude that normalizes the absolute value of each indicator to the interval of
[0, 255].

Ecological Service Space included three subsystems: Low Ecological
Service Space, Middle Ecological Service Space and High Ecological
Service Space, and took ecosystem services as the main function. The
differences between these three subsystems were not caused by human
activities, but by the natural environment. The landscape type of Low
Ecological Service Space was mainly desert (more than 98% of the total
area of Low Ecological Service Space), where there was almost no
human economic activities and food production (Table 3). The
ecosystem service value of Middle Ecological Service Space was higher
than that of Low Ecological Service Space, and the landscape consisted
of grass and shrubs. High Ecological Service Space, with the highest
ecosystem service value (78303.51 yuan/ha) was dominated by wood­
land (192.6 Mha) and grassland (94.06 Mha). Human activities were
mainly grazing and forest logging, and people can get the most
ecosystem services in this social-ecological system. However, the rela­
tively remote location made it difficult for them to get the convenience
of modern life (such as clean water, internet, electricity, heating, etc.).
Therefore, the economic density of Ecological Service Space not exceed
40,000 yuan/ha, and the population per hectare was less than 1 person.
Food-Economic Space embodied the trade-off between food produc­
tion and economic development. Good location, convenient
transportation, and relatively complete infrastructure facilitate the
development of characteristic agriculture, such as ecological agricul­
ture, agricultural landscape tourism, farmhouses, etc. Cultivated land
and construction land accounted for 73.8% and 15.2% of the Food-
Economic Space, respectively, and the quality of the cultivated land in
the Food-Economic Space was greater than that in the Food Production
Space (Table 3). The intensity of human activities in this social-
ecological system was great, with economic and population densities
of 566.35 thousand yuan/ha and 7.82 people/ha, respectively. Food
production function and economic output function had equal advan­
tages in the system, reflecting the intermediate form of the transition
between Food Production Space and Economic Development Space.
Population and economic growth will break the balance between food
production and economic output, leading to the system’s transition to
Economic Development Space. On the contrary, population loss or
economic recession will cause this system transformed to Food Pro­
duction Space.
Economic-Ecological Space accounted for1.7% of social-ecological
systems in China, with weak food production capacity (Fig. 5). The
economic density (623.19 thousand yuan/ha) and population density
(7.89 people/ha) of Economic-Ecological Space were second only to the

5
C. Mengxue et al.
Fig. 4. Social-ecological system archetypes in China. FPS: Food Production Space; EDS: Economic Development Space; HES: High Ecological Service Space; MES:
Middle Ecological Service Space; LES: Low Ecological Service Space; FES: Food-Economic Space; EES: Economic-Ecological Space; EFS: Ecological-Food Space.
Fig. 5. Characteristics of different social-ecological system archetypes (data
referred to 2018). The red, blue and green dots represent the human activity
intensity (HAI), food production capacity (FPC), and ecosystem service value
(ESV), respectively. The letters a on the abscissa indicates Low Ecological
Service Space; b: Economic Development Space; c: High Ecological Service
Space; d: Middle Ecological Service Space; e: Food Production Space; f: Food-
Economic Space; g: Economic-Ecological Space; h: Ecological-Food Space. The
width of the colored band represents the proportion of the area occupied by this
type of social-ecological system.
Economic Development Space, and the ecosystem service value (66.3
thousand yuan/ha) was second only to the High Ecological Service
Space. The trade-off between economic output and ecological service
functions kept the system in a dynamic equilibrium. Tourism develop­
ment of natural landscapes is the main human activity, which can pro­
vide higher economic output while maintaining ecological functions.
Under the interference of human activities, the function of ecological
services gradually declined, leading to the transitions of the social-
ecological systems.
Ecological-Food Space represented a trade-off between ecological
services and food production and distributed in areas where Food Pro­
duction Space and Ecological Service Space interact intensively. The
6
Ecological Indicators 139 (2022) 108926
land use of this social-ecological system is dominated by arable land
(29.13 Mha), grassland (16.46 Mha) and woodland (13.15 Mha).
Compared with the economic output function, the food production and
the ecosystem service occupied an advantageous position in the system
(Fig. 5). It is concentrated in transitional areas such as the agro-pastoral
transitional zone and the agro-forestry transitional zone. If the water,
climate, soil, and terrain conditions are suitable, more woodland and
grassland will be used for planting production, leading to the transition
to Food Production Space. However, when the management department
formulates ecological protection policies to restore the ecology, the
farmland will be returned to woodland to grassland.
Food Production Space, Economic Development Space and Ecolog­
ical Service Space constituted the main archetypes of the social-
ecological systems. The human-nature interaction was the strongest in
Economic Development Space, followed by Food Production Space, and
the Ecological Service Space was the least disturbed by human activities.
Functional trade-offs and conflicts between the three main types of
social-ecological systems led to the formation and evolution of
Ecological-Food Space, Food-Economic Space, and Economic-Ecological
Space, which reflected the key areas and hotspots for the transitions of
social-ecological systems.
4.2. Characteristics of social-ecological system transitions
The area where the transitions of social-ecological systems occurred
accounted for about 10.6% of China between 1990 and 2018. Economic-
Ecological Space, Food-Economic Space and Ecological-Food Space that
represented functional trade-offs underwent significant transitions, with
a transition ratio of 41.6%, 35.7% and 33.1%, respectively. Economic-
Ecological space and Food-Economic Space, which reflected the con­
flict between economic output and other functions, mainly transformed
to Economic Development Space due to the increase in human activities
and reduction in ecosystem services value and food production capacity
(Table 4). Although the Ecological-Food Space also underwent a sig­
nificant transition, the main direction of transition was not the Food
Production Space where human activities were more intense. Nearly
50% of the changed Ecological-Food Space transformed into Ecological
Service Space, as a result of the implementation of ecological projects
such as returning farmland to forests and grasslands (Table 4). In
addition to the above three social-ecological systems that embody
C. Mengxue et al. Ecological Indicators 139 (2022) 108926

Table 3
Detailed characteristics of social-ecological system archetypes (data referred to 2018).
EDS HES MES LES FPS FES EES EFS

Farmland (Mha) 3.53 42.96 10.05 0.40 60.92 25.66 4.93 29.13
Woodland (Mha) 0.97 192.60 2.79 0.01 4.10 1.62 5.97 13.15
Grassland (Mha) 0.51 94.06 176.68 0.69 7.38 0.88 1.66 16.46
Water body (Mha) 0.55 18.23 1.83 0 1.65 1.19 1.32 1.98
Built-up land (Mha) 3.29 2.53 1.07 0.13 5.63 5.30 1.37 1.88
Unused land (Mha) 0.08 18.90 83.30 90.92 2.04 0.10 0.52 2.33
ESV (103 yuan/ha) 30.47 77.75 21.68 6.83 18.57 19.3 66.30 40
FPC (kg/ha) 1244.97 248.99 23.35 0.25 3990.61 4152.93 598.83 1762.73
GDP (103 yuan/ha) 2975.00 39.61 6.51 1.62 108.92 566.35 623.19 65.23
POP (people/ha) 28.47 0.99 0.12 0.03 2.94 7.82 7.89 1.61

1 Mha = 1 × 106 ha.

Table 4
Transformation of social-ecological system in China between 1990 and 2018 (Mha).
1990 2018

EDS HES MES LES FPS FES EES EFS

EDS 2.16 0 0.01 0 0 0.06 0.09 0

HES 0.07 349.04 8.43 0.03 0.38 0.03 2.84 5.91
MES 0.12 8.75 256.51 4.78 0.65 0 1.6 2.28
LES 0 0.11 4.71 87.32 0.01 0 0.15 0.02
FPS 0.18 0.15 0.49 0.02 64.56 4.37 0.18 8.34
FES 4.19 0.27 0.03 0 9.16 29.42 1.22 1.44
EES 2.09 3.44 0.21 0.02 0.05 0.15 8.71 0.24
EFS 0.15 8.5 5.77 0.04 7.07 0.86 0.85 46.92

conflicts in space utilization, Food Production Space also emerged sig­
nificant transitions, with a transition ratio of 25%. Two-thirds of the
transformed Food Production Space evolved into Economic Develop­
ment Space and Food-Economic space with stronger human-nature
interaction, and the rest transformed into Eecological Service Space
and Ecological-Food space with lower human activity intensity.
The social-ecological system transitions in China were characterized
by the expansion of Economic Development Space, the reconstruction of
Food Production Space, and the contraction of Ecological Service Space.
It can be manifested in the transition of Food Production Space into
Food-Economic Space (4.37 Mha) and Ecological-Food Space (8.34
Mha), and the transition of Food-Economic Space to Food Production
Space (9.16 Mha) and Economic Development Space (4.19 Mha). Eco­
nomic Development Space expansion was mainly derived from Food
Production Space and Ecological Service Space. With economic devel­
opment and population growth, the rapid progress of urbanization
resulted in Economic Development Space expansion. Due to the spatial
overlap between urbanized areas and high-quality arable land, urban
expansion occupied a large amount of farmland, forcing the transition of
Food Production Space to Economic Development Space. On the other
hand, in order not to break the red line of arable land and ensure food
security, about 5 Mha of grassland and 2 Mha of forest were reclaimed to
supplement arable land in China since 1990. At the same time, more
than 2 million ha of arable land was converted into woodland and
grassland caused by the implementation of ecological projects. Conse­
quently, Food Production Space reconstruction and Ecological Service
Space contraction occurred. It was worth noting that the Ecological
Service Space, which transformed into Economic Development Space
and Food Production Space, had a higher ecosystem service value, rather
than Low Ecological Service Space. It indicated that the High Ecological
Service Space was more likely to disturbed by human activities than
other Ecological Service Spaces. The transition of High Ecological Ser­
vice Space will cause more loss of regional ecosystem functions and
human well-being than the transition of Low Ecological Service Space.
Therefore, areas with higher ecosystem service value should be pro­
tected more than other areas.
4.3. Food Production Space reconstruction
The essence of social-ecological system transitions was a process in
which the interests of different stakeholders conflicted in space, and the
conflict was alleviated through the transformation of the system form in
time. These conflicts were mainly manifested in the conflicts between
Food Production Space and Economic Development Space, Ecological
Service Space. Due to the constraints of the geographical environment,
there were relatively few conflicts between Economic Development
Space and Ecological Service Space. The transitions between Economic
Development Space and Ecological Service Space were mainly produced
through the transmission of Food Production Space reconstruction.
Therefore, Food Production Space reconstruction concentrated the main
contradictions in social-ecological system changes.
Food Production Space reconstruction referred to the changes in the
quantity, quality and pattern of Food Production Space as a consequence
of the system function tradeoffs by different stakeholders. In general,
between 1990 and 2018, China’s Food Production Space underwent
significant reconstruction. A total of 13.73 Mha of Food Production
Space was transformed into other social-ecological system types such as
Ecological-Food Space (8.34 Mha) and Food-Economic Space (4.37
Mha). Meanwhile, a total of 17.32 Mha of other social-ecological sys­
tems, such as Food-Economic Space (9.16 Mha) and Ecological-Food
Space (7.07 Mha), was transformed into Food Production Space. These
transitions not only resulted in a net increase of 3.59 Mha in the area of
the Food Production Space, but also improved the grain production
potential of the arable land within the Food Production Space from
3810.96 kg/ha to 3990.61 kg/ha. Functions such as economic output,
and food production were effectively guaranteed in the process of Food
Production Space reconstruction. However, the ecological service
function was weakened in China, and ecological and environmental
problems gradually became prominent and profoundly affected the
livelihood and well-being of residents. How to reduce the tradeoffs of
system functions as much as possible in the process of restructuring Food
Production Space had become a problem that must be solved to coor­
dinate food security, ecological protection and high-quality
development.
Since the beginning of human activities, food production space had

7
C. Mengxue et al.
gone through four stages of expansion, contraction, degradation and
intensification (Fig. 6). Food Production Space showed an expansion
trend between 1990 and 2000 in China; it was in a contraction phase
from 2000 to 2010. For a long time, China implemented a strict arable
land protection institution, including the balance of arable land occu­
pation and compensation, and the linkage of increase in urban con­
struction land and decrease in rural residential land. However, the
quality of newly reclaimed arable land was much lower than that of
arable land occupied by construction land. At the same time, with the
scarcity of reserve arable land resources, the capital and technical in­
vestment in arable land increased in order to pursue the maximum
benefit of existing arable land. Therefore, from 2010 to 2018, the
restructuring of Food Production Space experienced both degradation
and intensification in China.
5. Discussions
5.1. Social-ecological system transition pathways
The expansion of Economic Development Space, reconstruction of
Food Production Space, and contraction of Ecological Service Space
were mainly realized through the pathways such as urban expansion,
land consolidation, deforestation and reclamation, grain to green,
tourism development, ecological restoration, etc. in China. Exploring
the social-ecological system transition pathway can provide a deep un­
derstanding of the process, mechanism and effects of transition. It also
help to implement precise policies to regulate the transformation of
social-ecological system to the expected and required direction.
5.1.1. Urban expansion pathway
Urban expansion was the main feature of urbanization. Since the
reform and opening up, the urbanization level in China increased
rapidly as a result of economic development and population growth, led
to an unprecedented expansion of urban land. Urban expansion changed
land cover, hydrological systems, biogeochemistry, habitat and biodi­
versity (Liu et al., 2019; Song et al., 2020), and became one of the main
pathways for the transitions of social-ecological systems. There were
significant regional differences in urban expansion. The expansion rate
of eastern China gradually slowed down, the western and northeastern
regions accelerated urban expansion, and the central region expanded
steadily (Zhang et al., 2018; Fei & Zhao, 2019). As the most active area
Fig. 6. Reconstruction stages of Food Production Space that may be experi­
enced within a given region over time. Different parts of the world were in
different reconstruction stages, depending on their history, social and economic
conditions, and ecological context. Furthermore, not all parts of the world move
linearly through these transitions. Rather, some places remain in one stage for a
long period of time, while others move rapidly between stages [Adapted from
Foley et al., 2005].
8
Ecological Indicators 139 (2022) 108926
for urban land expansion, the urban land area and built-up area of urban
agglomerations in China kept increasing between 1990 and 2018. The
intensity of urban expansion showed a trend of first rising and then
falling, along with a large number of rural people moved into urban
agglomerations, which resulted in the occupation of agricultural land by
urban land on a large scale. Therefore, urban agglomerations were
hotspots for the transition of Food Production Space to Economic
Development Space.
5.1.2. Land consolidation pathway
Land consolidation took the rational attention of the economic man
to supplement the area of arable land and improve the quality of arable
land, with the goal of maximizing the economic benefits of land output
(Asiama et al., 2021; Zhang et al., 2020). It was an important pathway
for the transition of Economic Development Space to Food Production
Space. As a means of coordinating the relationship between human and
nature, land consolidation had multiple functions such as ensuring food
security and intensive use of resources. Since 1990, the amount of funds,
the number of projects, and the scale of construction for land consoli­
dation increased rapidly in China. There were an average of 350,000 ha
of arable land was added annually through land consolidation. Land
consolidation effectively increased the area of arable land, improved the
quality of arable land and agricultural production conditions, which
promoted the industrialization and scale of agricultural production
(Zhou et al., 2020).
5.1.3. Deforestation and reclamation pathway
Deforestation and reclamation referred to human activities that
convert natural landscapes such as forests, shrubs, and grasslands into
farmlands through deforestation and grassland reclamation. Since the
advent of agriculture, deforestation and reclamation has been the most
common, effective and direct pathway to supplement agricultural land
(Foley et al., 2005; Chazdon, 2008). China’s population increased by
250 million from 1990 to 2018, and more arable land was needed to
meet the increasing demand for food. Urban expansion caused by eco­
nomic development gradually encroached on a large amount of arable
land. Under the dual pressure of insufficient supply of and increased
demand for cultivated land, about 20 million hectares of woodland and
14.6 million hectares of grassland were converted into arable land.
Therefore, deforestation and reclamation was the main pathway for the
transition from Ecological Service Space to Food Production Space.
5.1.4. Grain to green pathway
In order to slow down soil erosion and restore vegetation coverage,
the Chinese government took the lead in pilot program of grain to green
in Shaanxi, Gansu and Sichuan in 1999 (Wang et al., 2017). In 2002, the
Grain to Green Program was fully extended to 25 provinces across the
country. Grain to green program, as the world’s largest ecological
project, had an important impact on the pattern and function of land use
in China (Zhou et al., 2012). Nearly 30 million hectares of farmlands was
converted to woodlands and grasslands, effectively curbed soil erosion
and wind-sand damage, and achieved good economic and ecological
benefits (Chen et al., 2019; Yang et al., 2020). The relatively fragile
natural ecosystem, coupled with the long-term unreasonable land use by
humans, caused the Loess Plateau to become the areas with the most
severe soil erosion in China (Jia et al., 2014). Therefore, the Loess
Plateau was the key construction area of the Grain to Green Program and
made a great contribution to the improvement of forest coverage (Wu
et al., 2020). The area of returning farmland to forest and grassland on
the Loess Plateau was about 4 million hectares, accounting for 17% of
the cultivated land area. After the implementation of Grain to Green
Program in the Loess Plateau, the total primary productivity of vegeta­
tion showed an increasing trend, with an average growth rate of 24.1 g/
(m2⋅a). The area where the total primary productivity of vegetation
increased significantly accounted for 67.3% of the total area. Therefore,
the Loess Plateau became the focus and hotspots for the transition of
C. Mengxue et al.
Food Production Space to Ecological Service Space (You et al., 2020).
5.1.5. Tourism development pathway
The transition from Ecological Service Space to Economic Develop­
ment Space took tourism development as the basic pathway. Tourism
development pathway indicated two meanings: (i) infrastructure con­
struction (including roads, parking lots, houses, playgrounds, etc.) for
the development of tourism converted ecological land into built-up land;
(ii) greater economic returns brought by tourism development made the
economic output function dominate the regional function. Therefore,
tourism development mainly referred to eco-tourism, which emphasized
the protection of natural areas and the economic benefits of commu­
nities, and strived to achieve good results that benefit multiple parties.
Under the general trend of economic development with the construction
of ecological civilization as an important engine, eco-tourism, a type of
tourism product that promoted environmental protection and advocated
a high degree of harmony between human and nature, became a trend
and direction in the development of modern tourism (Ioppolo et al.,
2013; Cong et al., 2019).
5.1.6. Ecological restoration pathway
Ecological restoration pathway of social-ecological system transi­
tions referred to the restoration of industrial and mining land, residen­
tial areas and other construction land to ecological landscape through
artificial intervention or natural succession. Since 1990, a total of 3.1
million hectares of built-up land in China was transformed into wood­
land, grassland, and water body through ecological restoration pathway,
realized the transition of Economic Development Space to Ecological
Service Space. In addition, the implementation of ecological restoration
and protection in ecologically fragile areas, which made the status of
ecological service functions in the region surpass the function of eco­
nomic development, also promoted the transition of Economic Devel­
opment Space to Ecological Service Space.
5.2. Driving force for social-ecological system transitions
Institutional reform and policy adjustments played a leading role in
the transitions of social-ecological systems (Silva et al., 2017; Tian et al.,
2020; Swette & Lambin,2021). The ecological environmental protection
policies and land management systems (land ownership, primary
farmland protection, balance of arable land occupation and compensa­
tion, and construction land use system, etc.) implemented by the Chi­
nese government exerted a profound influence on the human-nature
interaction. At the same time, macroeconomic control policies and
regional development strategies indirectly affected the transitions of
social-ecological system while regulating the process of regional social
and economic development. Therefore, social-ecological system transi­
tions were the result of the comprehensive effect of the social and eco­
nomic development process, regional background conditions, and
external environment under the action of multiple policy and institu­
tional factors (Reyers et al., 2018). The intensive use of nature resources
brought about by economic development and economic modernization
raised the awareness of ecological protection of different stakeholders,
promoted the relaxation of the interaction between human and nature
(Lambin & Meyfroidt, 2010). Urbanization caused by economic devel­
opment affected the regional human-nature relationship through urban
spatial expansion and urban–rural migration (Wang et al., 2018). Social-
ecological system transition was a process that co-occurs with the pop­
ulation migration, and was bound to be affected by growth, migration,
and structural changes of population (Radel et al., 2019). Especially in
rural areas, in the context of the rapid advancement of industrialization
and urbanization, rising agricultural opportunity costs and poor living
conditions triggered a large number of rural laborers to transfer to urban
non-agricultural sectors, reduced the disturbance of nature (Silva et al.,
2017).
Location was an important spatial factor drove the transitions of
9
Ecological Indicators 139 (2022) 108926
social-ecological systems (Shi et al., 2019). The spatial heterogeneity of
location determined the evolution of the spatial pattern of geographic
elements, a good location was the prerequisite for accepting the radiant
drive of regional central cities. The capital, information, technology, and
talents of central cities spread to their hinterland, stimulated the rapid
development of non-agricultural industries in the surrounding areas and
weakening the position of agriculture in economic development (Liu &
Long, 2016). Therefore, the convenience of transportation and the dis­
tance from the center of social and economic activities affected social-
ecological system transitions. The dissemination of cultural knowledge
and the transformation of ideas and values drove the transitions of
social-ecological systems through the process of transmission and
feedback between different levels of politics, economy, and society (Ma
et al., 2019). In addition, technology promotion promoted the intensive
use of high-quality land, enabled less land to produce more goods and
services, leading to the marginalization of poor-quality land, and pro­
vided a driving force for the transitions of social-ecological systems (Ge
et al., 2020).
Factors such as institution, policy, location, capital etc. mainly drove
the transitions of social-ecological systems through two mechanisms:
community crisis response and individual interest induction. The tran­
sitions of the social-ecological systems caused by the former was called
the top-down transitions, and caused by the latter was called bottom-up
transitions.
5.3. Community crisis response
Community crisis response mechanism referred to the top-down
actions taken by the government and management departments to
deal with the survival crisis faced by the community or may exist in the
future, and finally led to social-ecological system transitions. The
foundation of the community crisis response mechanism lay in the
finiteness of nature resources, and the existing nature resources cannot
meet all sustainable development goals (Gao & Bryan, 2017). When the
limited nature resources were concentrated on a specific demand, it will
inevitably cause the weakening and loss of other system functions,
endangering the survival and development of human society (Li et al.,
2021; Liu et al., 2021). However, resource users would never self-
organize to maintain their resources and that governments must
impose solutions. In order to cope with existed or avoid future crises, the
relationship between human and nature was adjusted by governments,
leading to social-ecological system transitions (Bauch et al., 2016).
At the beginning of reform and opening up, China was facing a crisis
of low economic development. China carried out land system reforms for
economic development, allowing state-owned construction land to enter
the market to increase economic vitality, and expropriating agricultural
land for urban development and construction to attract foreign capital.
Simultaneously, economic development attracted a large number of
agricultural populations flood into the cities, which caused housing
shortages, and more agricultural land had to be expropriated to develop
real estate to meet the growing housing demand (Li et al., 2021).
Therefore, under the dual effects of economic development and popu­
lation growth, Food Production Space transformed into Economic
Development Space.
However, the transition of Food Production Space to Economic
Development Space threatened food security. The Chinese government
formulated policies and systems for the protection of arable land (bal­
ance of arable land occupation and compensation, linkage of increase in
urban construction land and decrease in rural residential land, and basic
farmland protection system) to respond to the food security crisis of
community. Consequently, large numbers of grasslands, forests, and
swamps were reclaimed as arable land (Zhang et al., 2021). Further­
more, more capital and technology were invested in agriculture to in­
crease food production. Therefore, Ecological Service Space transformed
into Food Production Space in somewhere, which reduced the well-
being that humans can obtain from the ecosystem, increased
C. Mengxue et al.
ecological disasters and brought ecological crisis to human society. In
response to the ecological crisis, China adopted measures to return
farmland to forests and grasslands and delineate ecological red lines
guided by the conviction that lucid waters and lush mountains are
invaluable assets, resulted in the transition of Food Production Space to
Ecological Service Space.
5.4. Individual interest induction
With the change of land income and opportunity cost, land users will
change the mode of land management to pursue the maximization of
individual interests. The transformation of land management patterns
modulates and alters the relationship between man and nature, ulti­
mately leading to social-ecological system transition. This bottom-up
mechanism of social-ecological system transition refers to individual
interest induction. Individuals always pursue the maximization of their
own economic interests, ignoring ecological and social benefits. There­
fore, individual stakeholders operate and use nature resources in a way
that they believe can yield the greatest economic benefits (Francis &
Jeff, 2011; Nguyen et al., 2016). When economic, policy, technical and
other reasons cause the benefits (or opportunity cost) of the original land
operation method to be lower than the new operation method, land use
pattern will be changed, leading to the transitions of social-ecological
systems (Lambin & Meyfroidt, 2010; Xiao et al., 2019).
The land use pattern that can obtain the greatest benefit in a region
was determined by the location, technology, policy, and natural back­
ground characteristics. In areas with good location, flat terrain, fertile
soil and suitable climate, construction land can yield greater benefits
than cultivated land and ecological land (Song, 2017). Therefore,
stakeholders tend to increase capital and technological input to trans­
form Food Production Space and Ecological Service Space into Eco­
nomic Development Space. On the other hand, the development of social
economy brought more employment opportunities for agricultural
personnel to obtain more benefits, which increased the opportunity cost
of agricultural production (Long & Chen, 2021). The transfer of agri­
cultural labor to non-agricultural sector, driven by individual economic
interests, caused marginal lands with poor returns to be abandoned or
restored to natural landscapes. Certain areas with special natural con­
ditions can provide unique ecological services or products and generate
monopoly rent that greater than agricultural income, which would lead
to the transition of Food Production Space to Ecological Service Space.
Moreover, the national ecological compensation policy also led farmers
to return farmland to forests or grasslands in order to obtain higher
incomes than agriculture.
5.5. Implications, applications and limitations
A comprehensive understanding of human and natural systems is
critical to solving urgent sustainability challenges. From treating human
and nature as separate systems to treating them as two interactive
components of a complex, dynamic, integrated system, this more inte­
grated approach can better understand systems involving humans and
nature. The approaches under system integration theory divided the
system into different components when analyzing complex systems,
which undermines what is sought to be understood. System generation
theory was more helpful than system integration theory to understand
the nature of social-ecological systems. This study provided a case for
the study of social-ecological systems from the perspective of generation
theory. It emphasized that social-ecological systems were not only the
sum of human or natural “parts”, but new attributes emerged in the
process of coupling between humans and nature. Only by focusing on
the macrolevel of emerging phenomena can the things such as resilience,
critical transitions or adaptability as system properties be explained,
which was essential for sustainable development. Taking China as a
case, we identified the social-ecological system archetype from the
perspective of functional trade-offs, and discussed its transition
10
Ecological Indicators 139 (2022) 108926
pathways and influencing factors. Based on China’s practical experi­
ence, the community crisis response mechanism and the individual in­
terest induction mechanism of the social-ecological system transition
have been summarized, which helps to simulate the process and effects
of the social-ecological system transition. Other developing countries
can formulate relevant policies and innovate development concepts to
alleviate the trade-offs between economic development, food security,
and ecological protection by learning from the social-ecological transi­
tion mechanism.
The social-ecological system archetypes depict representative pat­
terns of human-nature interactions. It can be used to improve the un­
derstanding of the interaction between human and environment in
different regions through assess recurrent causes and effects of human­
–nature interactions as an integrated set of processes rather than as
isolated factors (Rocha et al., 2020). The classification of social-
ecological systems provided an opportunity to discover the general
pattern of major land pressures and environmental crisis, thereby
identifying areas that may require similar policy responses, or high­
lighting the heterogeneity that policymakers should be aware of. The
social-ecological system archetypes can provide scientific evidence and
action-oriented knowledge to meet the challenges of global change.
Moreover, the social-ecological system transitions can help explore the
key thresholds that lead to the transition of one social-ecological system
to another. In anticipation of this transition, sustainable development
efforts can be focused on limiting the increase in driving factors that may
weaken the critical feedback process, thereby maintaining the stability
of the desired system. The Food Production Space reconstruction that
concentrated the main contradictions of the social-ecological system
transitions would provide a new perspective for solving the problems of
food security, ecological protection and high-quality development. It is
helpful to coordinate the land use contradiction between food produc­
tion, ecological protection and high-quality development, and promote
the permanent use of land resources and sustainable development of the
economy and society.
This study differs from existing studies in the following two aspects:
(1) mapped the social-ecological system archetypes based on the
dominant function; (2) the time points corresponding to each indicator
were consistent; (3) analyzed the spatiotemporal transition of social-
ecological systems. However, there were some limitations in this
study. The nature of the data and the applied model introduced varying
degrees of uncertainty in the final classification of social-ecological
systems. Incorporating relevant food production, ecological services,
and socio-economic indicators was a key improvement in mapping the
social-ecological systems, but many influencing factors were still
ignored due to lack of data. For example, although food production,
ecological services, population growth, and economic development
were considered in this study, the social aspects were not incorporated
because we did not find indicators and data that could quantitatively
and faithfully reflect the social aspects. The fused image of human ac­
tivity intensity, ecosystem service value and food production capacity
can not only reflect the main functions of the social-ecological system,
but also reflect the macroscopic pattern of the interaction between
human activities and the natural environment. Although other social
aspects such as culture, education and traditional customs may have
impact on the microscopic mechanism of the interaction between
human activities and the natural environment, there were little impact
on the macroscopic pattern and dominant functions. Therefore, we
believe that methods and data in this study can achieve our research
purposes.
In addition, the use of natural units on a normalized scale when
evaluating ecosystem services can more intuitively show the macro­
scopic pattern of the ecological environment. The ecological services
provided by different ecosystems depend on human activities and land
use patterns, not just land cover. We also tried the gross ecosystem
product method proposed by Ouyang et al. (2020). The result of this
method was more accurate in evaluating ecosystem services. However,
C. Mengxue et al.
when it combined with food production capacity and human activity
intensity to mapping social-ecological systems, the impact on the eval­
uation results was not significant, indicated that the method we origi­
nally used was reasonable. According to the principle of simplification,
we choose a relatively easy-to-implement method for calculation, which
was also convenient for replicate our research in areas where data was
relatively scarce. The social-ecological system archetypes mapping
method used in this study only considered data proximity and did not
pay enough attention to spatial proximity. New methods that can take
into account both data proximity and spatial proximity should be
developed in the future. Only the macro-results of social-ecological
system transitions were described, lacked the detailed process of tran­
sitions and it was still unclear when the critical transitions appeared.
During the Anthropocene, the main drivers of the recorded social-
ecological system transitions were climate change and human activ­
ities related to agriculture and economy, but this study paid less atten­
tion to climate change.
6. Conclusions
The social-ecological system archetypes were mapped and 8 typical
social-ecological systems were identified in this study by combining K-
means clustering and dominant function determination. It provided a
comprehensive understanding of the interaction between humans and
nature, and the spatial pattern and transitions of social-ecological sys­
tems. Food Production Space (accounted for 8.7%), Economic Devel­
opment Space (accounted for 1%) and Ecological Service Space
(accounted for 78.1%) constituted the main archetypes of the social-
ecological systems. Ecological-Food Space, Food-Economic Space, and
Economic-Ecological Space were the key areas and hotspots for the
transitions of social-ecological systems. Between 1990 and 2018, 33.1%,
35.7% and 41.6% of the three, respectively, transitioned to other social-
ecological system archetypes. The social-ecological system transitions in
China were characterized Food Production Space reconstruction. These
transitions not only resulted in a net increase of 3.59 Mha in the area of
the Food Production Space, but also improved the grain production
potential of the arable land within the Food Production Space. Factors
such as institution, policy, location, capital etc. mainly drove the tran­
sitions of social-ecological systems through two mechanisms of com­
munity crisis response and individual interest induction. It offered an
opportunity to discover the general pattern of major land pressures and
environmental crisis, thereby identifying areas that may require similar
policy responses, or highlighting the heterogeneity that policymakers
should be aware of. Therefore, it can provide scientific evidence and
action-oriented knowledge to meet the challenges of global
sustainability.
CRediT authorship contribution statement
Cao Mengxue: Conceptualization, Methodology, Formal analysis,
Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing. Lu Xiaoyan: Data
curation, Visualization, Investigation. Qin Zhangxuan: Data curation,
Visualization, Investigation. Liu Xiaolin: Data curation, Visualization,
Investigation. Li Fei: Conceptualization, Methodology, Formal analysis,
Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing.
Declaration of Competing Interest
The authors declare that they have no known competing financial
interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence
the work reported in this paper.
Acknowledgments
This research was conducted under the auspices of National Natural
Science Foundation of China (42171197).
11
Ecological Indicators 139 (2022) 108926
Appendix A. Supplementary data
Supplementary data to this article can be found online at https://doi.
org/10.1016/j.ecolind.2022.108926.
References
An, L.i., Linderman, M., Qi, J., Shortridge, A., Liu, J., 2005. Exploring complexity in a
human-environment system: an agent-based spatial model for multidisciplinary and
multiscale integration. Ann. Assoc. Am. Geogr. 95 (1), 54–79.
Asiama, K.O., Voss, W., Bennett, R., et al., 2020. Land consolidation activities in Sub-
Saharan Africa towards the agenda 2030: A tale of three countries. Land Use Policy,
101: 105140.
Balazsi, A., Riechers, M., Hartel, T., et al., 2019. The impacts of social-ecological system
change on human-nature connectedness: A case study from Transylvania, Romania.
Land Use Policy, 89: 104232.
Bauch, C.T., Sigdel, R., Pharaon, J., Anand, M., 2016. Early warning signals of regime
shifts in coupled human–environment systems. PNAS 113 (51), 14560–14567.
Chazdon, R.L., 2008. Beyond deforestation: Restoring forests and ecosystem services on
degraded lands. Science 320 (5882), 1458–1460.
Chen, C., Park, T., Wang, X., Piao, S., Xu, B., Chaturvedi, R.K., Fuchs, R., Brovkin, V.,
Ciais, P., Fensholt, R., Tømmervik, H., Bala, G., Zhu, Z., Nemani, R.R., Myneni, R.B.,
2019. China and India lead in greening of the world through land-use management.
Nat. Sustainability 2 (2), 122–129.
Chen, J., Liu, Y., 2014. Coupled natural and human systems: a landscape ecology
perspective. Landscape Ecol. 29 (10), 1641–1644.
Cong, X., Huang, Y., Liu, J., 2019. Spatial and temporal evolution of coupled
coordination degree of ecotourism and tourism environment of Jilin Province.
Scientia Geographica Sinica 39 (3), 496–505.
Edwards, P., Sharma-Wallace, L., Wreford, A., et al., 2019. Tools for adaptive governance
for complex social-ecological systems: a review of role-playing-games as serious
games at the community-policy interface. Environmental Research Letters, 14(11):
113002.
Epstein, G., Morrison, T.H., Lien, A., Gurney, G.G., Cole, D.H., Delaroche, M., Villamayor
Tomas, S., Ban, N., Cox, M., 2020. Advances in understanding the evolution of
institutions in complex social-ecological systems. Current Opinion in Environmental
Sustainability 44, 58–66.
Fedele, G., Donatti, C.I., Harvey, C.A., Hannah, L., Hole, D.G., 2019. Transformative
adaptation to climate change for sustainable social-ecological systems. Environ. Sci.
Policy 101, 116–125.
Fei, W., Zhao, S., 2019. Urban land expansion in China’s six megacities from 1978 to
2015. Sci. Total Environ. 664 (10), 60–71.
Filatova, T., Polhill, J.G., Ewijk, S.V., 2016. Regime shifts in coupled socio-
environmental systems. Environ. Modell. Software 75, 333e347.
Fischer, G., Shah, M., Velthuizen, H., Nachtergaele, F. (Eds.), 2006. Agro-ecological
Zones Assessments. Eolss Publishers, Oxford, UK.
Fischer, G., Sun, L., 2001. Model based analysis of future land-use development in China.
Agric. Ecosyst. Environ. 85 (1-3), 163–176.
Foley, J.A., DeFries, R., Asner, G.P., Barford, C., Bonan, G., Carpenter, S.R., Chapin, F.S.,
Coe, M.T., Daily, G.C., Gibbs, H.K., Helkowski, J.H., Holloway, T., Howard, E.A.,
Kucharik, C.J., Monfreda, C., Patz, J.A., Prentice, I.C., Ramankutty, N., Snyder, P.K.,
2005. Global Consequences of land use. Science 309 (5734), 570–574.
Francis, S.R., Jeff, H., 2011. Looking forward: using scenario modeling to support
regional land use planning in Northern Yukon, Canada. Ecol. Society 16 (4), 18.
Gain, A.K., Giupponi, C., Renaud, F.G., et al., 2020. Sustainability of complex social-
ecological systems: methods, tools, and approaches. Reg. Environ. Change 20 (3),
1–4.
Gao, L., Bryan, B.A., 2017. Finding pathways to national-scale land-sector sustainability.
Nature 544 (7649), 217–222.
Ge, D., Zhou, G., Qiao, W., Yang, M., 2020. Land use transition and rural spatial
governance: Mechanism, framework and perspectives. J. Geog. Sci. 30 (8),
1325–1340.
Grêt-Regamey, A., Huber, S.H., Huber, R., 2019. Actors’ diversity and the resilience of
social-ecological systems to global change. Nat. Sustainability 2 (4), 290–297.
Guerrero, A.M., Bennett, N.J., Wilson, K.A., Carter, N., Gill, D., Mills, M., Ives, C.D.,
Selinske, M.J., Larrosa, C., Bekessy, S., Januchowski-Hartley, F.A., Travers, H.,
Wyborn, C.A., Nuno, A., 2018. Achieving the promise of integration in social-
ecological research: A review and prospectus. Ecol. Soc. 23 (3).
Hamann, M., Biggs, R., Reyers, B., 2015. Mapping social–ecological systems: Identifying
’green-loop’ and ’red-loop’ dynamics based on characteristic bundles of ecosystem
service use. Global Environ. Change 34, 218–226.
IIASA/FAO, 2010. Global Agro-ecological Zones (GAEZ v3.0). IIASA, Laxenburg, Austria
and FAO, Rome, Italy.
Ioppolo, G., Saija, G., Salomone, R., 2013. From coastal management to environmental
management: The sustainable eco-tourism program for the mid-western coast of
Sardinia (Italy). Land Use Policy 31, 460–471.
Jia, X., Fu, B., Feng, X., Hou, G., Liu, Y.u., Wang, X., 2014. The tradeoff and synergy
between ecosystem services in the Grain-for-Green areas in Northern Shaanxi, China.
Ecol. Ind. 43, 103–113.
Lambin, E.F., Meyfroidt, P., 2010. Land use transitions: Socio-ecological feedback versus
socio-economic change. Land Use Policy 27 (2), 108–118.
Li, F., Qin, Z., Liu, X., Chen, Z., Wei, X., Zhang, Q., Lei, M., 2021. Grain production space
reconstruction and land system function tradeoffs in China. Geography and
Sustainability 2 (1), 22–30.
C. Mengxue et al.
Li, F., Zhou, M., Qin, Z., 2020. Generated land systems: recognition and prospects of land
system science. Environmental Reviews 28 (2), 199–207.
Li F, Zhou M, Shao J, et al., 2020b. Maize, wheat and rice production potential changes
in China under the background of climate change. Agricultural Systems, 182:
102853.
Liu, J., Dietz, T., Carpenter, S.R., Alberti, M., Folke, C., Moran, E., Pell, A.N.,
Deadman, P., Kratz, T., Lubchenco, J., Ostrom, E., Ouyang, Z., Provencher, W.,
Redman, C.L., Schneider, S.H., Taylor, W.W., 2007. Complexity of Coupled Human
and Natural Systems. Science 317 (5844), 1513–1516.
Liu, X., Pei, F., Wen, Y., Li, X., Wang, S., Wu, C., Cai, Y., Wu, J., Chen, J., Feng, K., Liu, J.,
Hubacek, K., Davis, S.J., Yuan, W., Yu, L.e., Liu, Z., 2019. Global urban expansion
offsets climate-driven increases in terrestrial net primary productivity. Nat.
Commun. 10 (1).
Liu, Y., Long, H., 2016. Land use transitions and their dynamic mechanism: The case of
the Huang-Huai-Hai Plain. J. Geog. Sci. 26 (5), 515–530.
Liu, J., Mooney, H., Hull, V., Davis, S.J., Gaskell, J., Hertel, T., Lubchenco, J., Seto, K.C.,
Gleick, P., Kremen, C., Li, S., 2015. Systems integration for global sustainability.
Science 347 (6225).
Liu, Y., Gao, Y., Pan, Y., et al., 2021. Spatial differentiation characteristics and trade-off/
synergy relationships of rural multi-functions based on multi-source data. Geography
Res. 40 (7), 2036–2050.
Long, H., Chen, K., 2021. Urban-rural integrated development and land use transitions: A
perspective of land system science. Acta Geographica Sinica 76 (2), 295–309.
Ma, E., Cai, J., Lin, J., et al., 2019. Explanation of land use/cover change from the
perspective of tele-coupling. Acta Geographica Sinica 74 (3), 421–431.
Magliocca, N.R., Van Khuc, Q., Ellicott, E.A., et al., 2019. Archetypical pathways of
direct and indirect land-use change caused by Cambodia’s economic land
concessions. Ecol. Soc. 24 (2), 25.
Schlüter, M., Haider, L.J., Lade, S.J., Lindkvist, E., Martin, R., Orach, K., Wijermans, N.,
Folke, C., 2019. Capturing emergent phenomena in social-ecological systems: an
analytical framework. Ecol. Soc. 24 (3).
Mooney, H.A., Duraiappah, A., Larigauderie, A., 2013. Evolution of natural and social
science interactions in global change research programs. PNAS 110 (Suppl. 1),
3665–3672.
Moore, M.-L., Tjornbo, O., Enfors, E., Knapp, C., Hodbod, J., Baggio, J.A., Norström, A.,
Olsson, P., Biggs, D., 2014. Studying the complexity of change: toward an analytical
framework for understanding deliberate social-ecological transformations. Ecol. Soc.
19 (4).
Müller, D., Sun, Z., Vongvisouk, T., Pflugmacher, D., Xu, J., Mertz, O., 2014. Regime
shifts limit the predictability of land-system change. Global Environ. Change 28,
75–83.
Nguyen, T.H.T., Tran, V.T., Bui, Q.T., Man, Q.H., Walter, T.d.V., 2016. Socio-economic
effects of agricultural land conversion for urban development: Case study of Hanoi,
Vietnam. Land Use Policy 54, 583–592.
Oberlack, C.D., Sietz, E., Bürgi Bonanomi, A., et al., 2019. Archetype analysis in
sustainability research: meanings, motivations, and evidence-based policy making.
Ecology and Society 24(2): 26.
O’Brien, K., 2012. Global environmental change II: From adaptation to deliberate
transformation. Prog. Hum. Geogr. 36 (5), 667–676.
Ouyang, Z., Song, C., Zheng, H., Polasky, S., Xiao, Y.i., Bateman, I.J., Liu, J.,
Ruckelshaus, M., Shi, F., Xiao, Y., Xu, W., Zou, Z., Daily, G.C., 2020. Using gross
ecosystem product (GEP) to value nature in decision making. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci.
U.S.A. 117 (25), 14593–14601.
Ostrom, E., 2009. A General Framework for Analyzing Sustainability of Social-Ecological
Systems. Science 325 (5939), 419–422.
Radel, C., Jokisch, B.D., Schmook, B., Carte, L., Aguilar-Støen, M., Hermans, K.,
Zimmerer, K., Aldrich, S., 2019. Migration as a feature of land system transitions.
Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability 38, 103–110.
Reyers, B., Folke, C., Moore, M.-L., Biggs, R., Galaz, V., 2018. Social-Ecological Systems
Insights for Navigating the Dynamics of the Anthropocene. Annu. Rev. Environ.
Resour. 43 (1), 267–289.
Rocha, J., Malmborg, K., Gordon, L., Brauman, K., DeClerck, F., 2020. Mapping social-
ecological systems archetypes. Environ. Res. Lett. 15 (3), 034017.
Scheffer, M., Carpenter, S.R., Lenton, T.M., Bascompte, J., Brock, W., Dakos, V., van de
Koppel, J., van de Leemput, I.A., Levin, S.A., van Nes, E.H., Pascual, M.,
Vandermeer, J., 2012. Anticipating Critical Transitions. Science 338 (6105),
344–348.
Shi, Y., Lyu, X., Guo, G., et al., 2019. Temporal-spatial pattern and driving mechanism of
cultivated land use transition based on GIS and spatial econometric model. China
Land Sci. 33 (11), 51–60.
Sietz, D., Frey, U., Roggero, M., et al., 2019. Archetype analysis in sustainability
research: methodological portfolio and analytical frontiers. Ecology and Society 24
(3): 34.
Silva, R.F.B., Batistella, M., Moran, E.F., 2017. Socioeconomic changes and
environmental policies as dimensions of regional land transitions in the Atlantic
Forest, Brazil. Environ. Sci. Policy 74, 14–22.
12
Ecological Indicators 139 (2022) 108926
Song, S., Liu, Z., He, C., et al., 2020. Evaluating the effects of urban expansion on natural
habitat quality by coupling localized shared socioeconomic pathways and the land
use scenario dynamics-urban model. Ecological Indicators, 112: 106071.
Song, X., 2017. Discussion on land use transition research framework. Acta Geographica
Sinica 72 (3), 471–487.
Srinivasan, V., Seto, K.C., Emerson, R., Gorelick, S.M., et al., 2013. The impact of
urbanization on water vulnerability: a coupled human–environment system
approach for Chennai, India. Global Environ. Change 23 (1), 229–239.
Steger, C., Hirsch, S., Cosgrove, C., et al., 2021. Linking model design and application for
transdisciplinary approaches in social-ecological systems. Global Environmental
Change, 66: 102201.
Swette, B., Lambin, E.F., 2021. Institutional changes drive land use transitions on
rangelands: The case of grazing on public lands in the American West. Global
Environmental Change, 66: 102220.
Thorn, J.P.R., Klein, J.A., Steger, C., Hopping, K.A., Capitani, C., Tucker, C.M., Nolin, A.
W., Reid, R.S., Seidl, R., Chitale, V.S., Marchant, R., 2020. A systematic review of
participatory scenario planning to envision mountain social-ecological systems
futures. Ecol. Soc. 25 (3).
Tian, J., Wang, B., Zhang, C., et al., 2020. Mechanism of regional land use transition in
underdeveloped areas of China: A case study of northeast China. Land Use Policy, 94:
104538.
Turner, B.L., Matson, P.A., McCarthy, J.J., Corell, R.W., Christensen, L., Eckley, N.,
Hovelsrud-Broda, G.K., Kasperson, J.X., Kasperson, R.E., Luers, A., Martello, M.L.,
Mathiesen, S., Naylor, R., Polsky, C., Pulsipher, A., Schiller, A., Selin, H., Tyler, N.,
2003. Illustrating the coupled human-environment system for vulnerability analysis:
three case studies. PNAS 100 (14), 8080–8085.
Wandersee, S.M., An, L.i., López-Carr, D., Yang, Y., 2012. Perception and decisions in
modeling coupled human and natural systems: a case study from Fanjingshan
National Nature Reserve, China. Ecol. Model. 229, 37–49.
Wang, B., Gao, P., Niu, X., Sun, J., 2017. Policy-driven China’s Grain to Green Program:
implications for ecosystem services. Ecosyst. Serv. 27, 38–47.
Wang, L., Pijanowski, B., Yang, W., Zhai, R., Omrani, H., Li, K.e., 2018. Predicting
multiple land use transitions under rapid urbanization and implications for land
management and urban planning: The case of Zhanggong District in central China.
Habitat International 82, 48–61.
Wood, C.M., Jones, G.M., 2019. Framing management of social-ecological systems in
terms of the cost of failure: the Sierra Nevada, USA as a case study. Environ. Res.
Lett., 14: 105004.
Wu, X., Wei, Y., Fu, B., Wang, S., Zhao, Y., Moran, E.F., 2020. Evolution and effects of the
social-ecological system over a millennium in China’s Loess Plateau. Sci. Adv. 6 (41).
Xiao, G., Zhu, X., Hou, C., Xia, X., 2019. Extraction and analysis of abandoned farmland:
a case study of Qingyun and Wudi counties in Shandong Province. J. Geog. Sci. 29
(4), 581–597.
Xie, G., Zhang, C., Zhang, L., et al., 2015. Improvement of the evaluation method for
ecosystem service value based on per unit area. J. Natural Resour. 8 (30),
1243–1254.
Xu, X., Wang, L., Cai, H., Wang, L., Liu, L., Wang, H., 2017. The influences of
spatiotemporal change of cultivated land on food crop production potential in China.
Food Security 9 (3), 485–495.
Yang, W., Dai, E., Zheng, D., et al., 2020. Spatial simulation of “Grain to Green Program”
implementation in a typical region based on agent-based model. Acta Geographica
Sinica 75 (9), 1983–1995.
Yin, S., Yang, X., Chen, J., 2020. Adaptive behavior of farmers’ livelihoods in the context
of human-environment system changes. Habitat International, 100: 102185.
You, N., Dong, J., Xiao, T., et al., 2020. The effects of the“Grain for Green”project on
gross primary productivity in the Loess Plateau. Scientia Geographica Sinica 40 (2),
315–323.
Zhang, D., Wang, W., Zhou, W., et al., 2020. The effect on poverty alleviation and income
increase of rural land consolidation in different models: a China study. Land Use
Policy, 99: 104989.
Zhang, H., Ning, X., Wang, H., et al., 2018. High accuracy urban expansion monitoring
and analysis of China’s provincial capitals from 2000 to 2015 based on high-
resolution remote sensing imagery. Acta Geographica Sinica 73 (12), 2345–2363.
Zhang, Q., Yang, F., Li, F., 2021. The grain production space reconstruction in China
since the reform and opening up. J. Natural Resour. 36 (6), 1426–1438.
Zhao, W., Yu, X., Xu, C., 2021. Social-ecological system management in drylands:
experiences from Chinese Ecosystem Research Network. Curr. Opin. Environ.
Sustainability 48, 93–102.
Zhou, D., Zhao, S., Zhu, C., 2012. The Grain for Green Project induced land cover change
in the Loess Plateau: A case study with Ansai County, Shanxi Province, China. Ecol.
Ind. 23, 88–94.
Zhou, Y., Li, Y., Xu, C., 2020. Land consolidation and rural revitalization in China:
Mechanisms and paths. Land Use Policy, 91: 104379.