Ecological Indicators 154 (2023) 110543

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

Disentangling the relative effects of climate change and anthropogenic

activities on paddy expansion in the northern Sanjiang Plain of China
Dan Liu , Wenfeng Chen , Linna Li *
Faculty of Geographical Science, Beijing Normal University, Beijing 100875, PR China

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

Keywords: Since the changes in paddy areas would significantly affect food security and agricultural sustainability, it has
Paddy expansion received worldwide attention guided by the United Nations 2030 Sustainable Development Goals. However, the
Anthropogenic activities process of paddy field change was complex, which was affected by both climate change and anthropogenic
Climate change
activities. Most existing studies focused on the spatial–temporal evolution of paddy field in different regions,
PLUS model
Scenario simulation
while the quantitative separation of climatic and anthropogenic contributions to paddy field expansion was rare
Sanjiang Plain but imperative. This study adopted the patch-generating land use simulation (PLUS) model to simulate the paddy
field expansion under different scenarios. Based on satellite-based land use data, meteorological data, socio­
economic data, physical geographical data, and transport data, it proposed four indicators, including ACI
(anthropogenic contribution index), CCI (climatic contribution index), RII (relative importance index), and CEI
(combined effects index) to quantitatively disentangle the climatic and anthropogenic contribution at different
scales, and further determined the relative importance and combined effects of climate change and anthropo­
genic activities. These indicators were applied to the case of northern Sanjiang Plain of China and found that the
total area of paddy fields in this area expanded greatly from 2638.88 km2 in 1995 to 19363.80 km2 in 2020. 1) At
the regional scale (the northern Sanjiang Plain of China), the effect of climate change was slightly larger than
that of anthropogenic activities on the paddy field expansion, with an inhibitory interactive effect of climate
change and anthropogenic activities. 2) At the city scale (Hegang, Jiamusi and Shuangyashan), the effect of
climate change was slightly stronger than anthropogenic activities in Hegang and Jiamusi, whereas Shuangya­
shan was the opposite. 3) At the county scale (15 counties), paddy field expansion of the central NSP was
dominated by anthropogenic activities, while the northern part was disturbed more by climate change. 4) At the
grid scale (30-m resolution), 51.17% of the grids had anthropogenic activities contributing more than climate
change to paddy field expansion, and 88.60% of the grids presented an inhibitory interactive effect of climate
change and anthropogenic activities. Thus, the indicators established for in this study can not only provide a
better understanding of the relative effects of climate change and anthropogenic activities on paddy field
expansion, but also give some policy implications for sustainable agricultural practice in both China and other
developing countries.

1. Introduction
According to the United Nations 2030 Sustainable Development
Goals, ending hunger, achieving food security and promoting sustain­
able agriculture was listed as one important goal. The paddy field played
a significant role since it is crucial to a series of issues related to human
well-being (Dong et al., 2016a). On one hand, rice farming is indis­
pensable for global food security, as rice provides staple grain for more
than half of the world’s population (Hu et al., 2019; Liu et al., 2022). On
the other hand, paddy rice remains a grand challenge to water resource
utilization since it is the largest water-consuming crop (Tuong et al.,
2005; Zhang et al., 2018). In addition, rice also substantially influences
disease control, greenhouse gas emissions and climate systems (Gilbert,
et al., 2014; Chen et al., 2014; T. Liu et al., 2018). Due to the importance
of paddy field, its spatial–temporal evolution has received much atten­
tion in the worldwide. For instance, in northeastern China, Japan, South
Korea and North Korea, there was large expansion of paddy fields (Dong
et al., 2016b; Liu et al., 2022). However, in some other places, the paddy

* Corresponding author at: Faculty of Geographical Science, Beijing Normal University, No.19, Xinjiekouwai St, Haidian District, Beijing 100875, PR China.
E-mail address: lilinna@bnu.edu.cn (L. Li).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolind.2023.110543
Received 13 October 2022; Received in revised form 15 June 2023; Accepted 20 June 2023
Available online 1 July 2023
1470-160X/© 2023 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/).
D. Liu et al.
fields have been threatened by the rapid urbanization process in the
urban regions. Accordingly, the process of paddy field change was
complex, which was affected by both climate change and anthropogenic
activities.
Most existing studies have recognized the important role of climate
change such as thermal conditions and precipitation and anthropogenic
activities such as socioeconomic development and policy implementa­
tion in driving the expansion of paddy rice (Ohta and Kimura, 2007;
Dong et al., 2016b; Liu et al., 2018a; Hu et al., 2019; Liu et al., 2022). It
is argued that with continuous climate change and the steadily growing
rice demand, enlarging paddy rice planting area becomes the direct
option for many countries to address feeding problems (Yan et al., 2019;
Liu et al., 2020). However, quantifying and mapping and the relative
contributions of climate change and anthropogenic activities to paddy
fields expansion patterns are rare but imperative for agricultural sus­
tainable development (Dong et al., 2016b; Liu et al., 2022; Li et al.,
2023b). Indeed, it remains a great defiance to separate relative contri­
butions of biophysical and anthropogenic deriving factors on paddy
fields expansion owe to the interrelation of different factors (Dong et al.,
2016b). For the effect of climate change on paddy expansion, it was
found that the global climate has experienced a significant warming at
an unprecedented pace, with surface air temperature data showing an
increase of approximately 0.72 ℃ over 1951–2012 (Ji et al., 2014; Li
et al., 2015), and was predicted to rise by 0.75–4 ◦ C by 2100 (IPCC,
2014). Previous studies have demonstrated the significant effects of
climate change on paddy rice cultivation, including yield and planting
area. For instance, in Africa, the yield declines resulting from a
contraction of the growing cycle were associated with high temperatures
(Van Oort and Zwart, 2018). Matsumato and Takagi (2017) found large
climate variations could potentially decrease rice production in Japan,
but the impact was relatively low in high-latitude regions. In south­
eastern China, it has been observed that lower temperature damages rice
growth and grain filling, and higher temperature shortens rice growth
duration (Hu et al., 2019; Saud et al., 2022), while in the northeastern
China, the rice planting area has expanded with the potential planting
boundaries of the rice cropping system shifting northward due to
increasing thermal resources (Chen et al., 2013; Zhang et al., 2019; Liu
et al., 2022). Similar to climatic factors, anthropogenic driving factors (i.
e. policy, economy and technology etc.) also substantially affect regional
paddy area change (Hu, 2021; Li et al., 2021). For instance, industrial­
ization and urbanization were accompanied by the loss and abandon­
ment of paddy fields, which was evident in southern China since the
early 1980s (Bren d’Amour et al., 2017; Qiu et al., 2020). Dong et al.
(2016b) indicated that the paddy field areas were significantly corre­
lated with rice sale prices and the incentives of agricultural policy in
Northeastern China. In addition, technological improvements, such as
agricultural machinery, improving rice cultivars and cultivation tech­
niques were proved to have positive effects on paddy field expansion
(Liu et al., 2022; Saud et al., 2022).
Research on the effects of climate change and anthropogenic activ­
ities on paddy area change has provided fundamental insight and
guidance to policymakers, yet most of which qualitatively analyzed the
causal relationships or concerned mainly with a one-sided quantifica­
tion, independently of one another (Song et al., 2015; Liu et al., 2016;
Liu et al., 2020; Xin et al., 2020; Liu et al., 2022). In addition, a few
scholars took two factors into account and employed quantitative
assessment methods to evaluate their relative effects in studies,
including model analysis and mathematical statistical methods (Shi
et al., 2016). For example, Rutten et al. (2014) proposed an approach to
reveal the respective role of climate change and human activities by
combining a Modular Applied General Equilibrium Tool (MAGNET) and
a spatially explicit land use model (CLUE). But the modeling process is
cumbersome and requires comprehensive data from different sectors
which is vitally difficult to practice in regional areas. Dong et al. (2016b)
and Liu et al. (2022) adopted a combined approach of the correlation
analysis and qualitative analysis to separately measured climatic factors
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Ecological Indicators 154 (2023) 110543
and anthropogenic factors in their studies. However, the relative
importance and combined contributions of factors to paddy fields area
change and their spatial distribution information remain inconclusive,
which makes agricultural land planning and management challenging.
In fact, holistic land use change pattern and mechanism need to consider
both climate change and anthropogenic activities, which are closely
watched by policy-makers. Recent studies have adopted a simulation
scenario method to quantitatively disentangle and quantify the contri­
butions of climate change and anthropogenic activities to other fields,
like vegetation change and ecosystem services, which provided a good
preparation for analyzing the driving factors of paddy expansion (Mar­
tinez-Harms et al., 2017; Bai et al., 2019; Borrelli et al., 2020; Liu et al.,
2018b; Wang et al., 2022a). The Cellular Automata (CA) has proliferated
in the simulation of spatiotemporal land use dynamics under the impacts
of natural and socioeconomic factors as well as their interactions (Tang
et al., 2020; Li et al., 2023a; Shi et al., 2023). Various improved methods
have been proposed to better facilitate this application in more recent
works, such as the patch-generating land use simulation (PLUS) model,
the landscape-driven patch-based CA (LP-CA), the logistic CA model
with a watershed segmentation algorithm (Segmentation-Patch-CA) and
the mixed-cell CA (MCCA) (Li et al., 2017; Liang et al., 2021a,b; Lin
et al., 2023). In particular, the PLUS model characterized with high
precision, fast data processing and outputting the influencing weights of
drivers, was extensively applied for comprehensive simulation of com­
plex changes in various land types (Liang et al., 2021b; Gao et al.; 2022;
Men and Pan, 2023). Thus, this study tried to propose some impact
analysis indicators to quantitatively disentangle the climatic and
anthropogenic contribution to paddy expansion based on PLUS model
and simulation of the paddy field expansion under different scenarios.
Although the established indicators can be widely applied, this study
took Northern Sanjiang Plain in China as a case study. As the largest rice
producer and the most populous country in the world, China consumes
and imports more rice than any other country (FAOSTAT, 2018).
China’s annual rice production was 211.86 million tons in 2020 (Na­
tional Bureau of Statistics of China (NBSC), 2021), accounting for
approximately 41% of the total worldwide production (FAOSTAT,
2022). Rice production in China has shaped the world’s food market and
national policies. With a rapid process of industrialization and urbani­
zation since the early 1980s (Deng et al., 2006; Deng et al., 2008), the
spatial pattern of south-north grain transportation has converted to
north–south grain transportation in China, making northeast China an
important paddy rice production base (Fan et al., 2012). In particular,
there were large increases in rice planting areas in the Sanjiang Plain,
which is located in northeast Heilongjiang Province (Liu et al., 2022; Lu
et al., 2017). It is thus of significant implications for adapting to climate
change and ensuring food security to assess the relative importance and
combine contributions of climatic and anthropogenic factors to rice
planting expansion in this area.
Thus, this study simulated different scenarios with the PLUS model
for paddy field areas in the northern part of Sanjiang Plain (NSP), by
considering the effects of climate change and anthropogenic activities,
respectively. The objectives of this study were to: (1) explore the tem­
poral and spatial patterns in paddy field expansion in NSP during
1995–2020, (2) quantitatively disentangle and evaluate the relative
contributions of climate change and anthropic activities to paddy field
expansion, (3) further determine their relative importance and com­
bined effects.
2. Materials and methods
2.1. Study area
This study focuses on the northern part of Sanjiang Plain, which
covers a latitudinal range of 45.56 ~ 48.52◦ N and a longitudinal range
of 129.29 ~ 135.50◦ E, with a total area of 69.2 thousand km2. It is
located in Heilongjiang Province of northeastern China and comprises
D. Liu et al.
Fig. 1. Location (a), terrain (b) and land use pattern (c) of the northern part of China (NSP).
three cities, namely, Shuangyashan, Hegang, and Jiamusi, adjacent to
Russia to the north. As Fig. 1 shows, it is dominated by broad alluvial
low plains, terraces and floodplains with dense rivers, and the elevation
gradually increases from south to north. The climate of the NSP is a
typical temperate continental monsoonal climate, characterized by
humid and semi-humid conditions, with short-mild-moist summers and
long-dry-cold winters. Its average annual temperature is approximately
3.5 ℃, with the coldest month in January and the hottest month in July.
Furthermore, the mean annual precipitation of NSP is approximately
580 mm. Recent decades have witnessed a significant climate warming
in this region (Chen et al., 2020; Zhang et al., 2019). Due to these unique
geomorphic and climatic conditions, the NSP has developed agriculture
since the 1950s and has become one of the major commodity grain-
production bases of China. The primary industry accounted for
42.03% of its GDP in 2020. The main land use types in NSP are farmland
(58.25%), forest (25.62%), grassland (1.64%), construction land
(4.28%), water body (2.23%) and unused land (7.98%). Additionally,
the population of NSP was approximately 4.25 million, with a GDP per
capita of ¥38,667 in 2020.
2.2. Data sources
This study used four types of datasets in the NSP, including grid-
based land use data, meteorological data, socioeconomic data, phys­
ical geographical data, and transport data, all of which constitute the
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Ecological Indicators 154 (2023) 110543
inputs of the PLUS model. First, the 30-m resolution land use data for
1995 and 2020 were collected from the Center for Resource and Envi­
ronmental Science Data, Chinese Academy of Sciences (RESDC) (htt
ps://www.resdc.cn/). The land use types consist of farmland (either
paddy fields or dry fields), forests, grasslands, water, construction land
and unused land. The accuracy of the six classes of land use and the 25
subclasses were above 94.3% and 91.2%, respectively (Liu et al., 2014).
Second, meteorological data consisting of annual air temperature,
monthly temperature and annual precipitation at a 1-km grid resolution
during 1980–2020, were also collected from the RESDC (http://www.
resdc.cn/). As a temperature- and precipitation-sensitive crop, the
crop phenology of rice can be directly influenced by climate change
(Zhang et al., 2019). Furthermore, thermal conditions are fundamental
to rice growth in cold regions (Liu et al., 2016; Liu et al., 2021). These
three indicators have been observed to be related to the paddy expan­
sion in previous studies, especially for the Sanjiang Plain (Dong et al.,
2016b; Hu et al., 2019; Huang et al., 2022). Based on the meteorological
data recorded at 2400 meteorology stations of China, these data were
obtained by spatial interpolation depending on the thin-plate smoothing
spline method (Xu, 2017). The mean temperature in the crop growing
season (from April to October of each year) was extracted with ArcGIS
from the monthly temperature. Third, socioeconomic data, including 1-
km resolution grid-based population and GDP data in 1995 and 2020,
were downloaded from RESDC (http://www.resdc.cn/). Admittedly,
these two indicators cannot represent the full content of human
D. Liu et al.
Fig. 2. Research framework of this study. ACI: anthropogenic contribution index; CCI: climatic contribution index; RII: relative importance index; CEI: combined
effects index.
activities. With the demand of grid-based data to enable spatial simu­
lations has created a challenge in characterizing anthropogenic activ­
ities, such as agricultural techniques, policies, and rice prices, with most
statistics that do not provide grid-based information. Moreover, the
practice that anthropogenic driving factors are characterized as gridded-
based population and GDP has been adopted in many spatial simulation
studies (Li et al., 2023a; Liang et al., 2021b; Men and Pan, 2023).
Finally, other indicators, including physical geographical data such as
digital elevation model (DEM), slope data, and soil types and transport
data such as distance to roads, distance to rail and distance to river, were
selected as controlling variables, due to their significant contributors to
the cropland change in existing studies (Rutten et al., 2014; Wang et al.,
2022b). The 250-m DEM data, 1-km slope data and 1-km soil type
spatial data were derived from RESDC (http://www.resdc.cn/), and the
main road, river and railway data were generated from the National
Earth System Science Data Center, National Science & Technology
Infrastructure of China (https://www.geodata.cn/).
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Ecological Indicators 154 (2023) 110543
2.3. Methods
2.3.1. Research framework
As depicted in Fig. 2, the research framework of this study contains
four essential steps, which were developed to disentangle the relative
effects of climate change and anthropogenic activities on paddy field
expansion in the NSP. The first step was data preprocessing. All variables
were resampled at 30-m resolution by the “Create Fishnet” tool in the
ArcGIS platform to match the spatial resolution of land use data. Addi­
tionally, the raster information (projection, columns and rows) of all
datasets was unified. Second, the land use datasets, climate datasets and
socioeconomic datasets were utilized to analyze the temporal-spatial
patterns and changes in the NSP of paddy fields for the period
1995–2020. Third, the area and spatial distribution of paddy fields in the
NSP under five different scenarios were simulated by the PLUS model.
Finally, factor analysis was performed to identify the contribution of
climate change and anthropogenic activities to paddy expansion, and
the relative importance and combined effect on the same. Additionally,
D. Liu et al. Ecological Indicators 154 (2023) 110543

Table 1 paddy expansion. The higher the value, the stronger the impact. Instead,
Scenario setting considering climate change and anthropogenic activities. a value less than 0 indicates that it has a negative impact on paddy
Anthropogenic activities Anthropogenic activities expansion. A value of 0 indicates that the factor has no impact. The
1995 2020 formulas are as follows:
Climate change Scenario 1 Scenario 2 ACI = (Sscenario2 - Sscenario1 )/(Sscenario4 - Sscenario1 ) (1)
1995
Climate change Scenario 3 Scenario 4
2020
CCI = (Sscenario3 - Sscenario1 )/(Sscenario4 - Sscenario1 ) (2)
RII reflected the relative importance of anthropogenic activities and
climate change by comparing ACI and CCI in each grid. A value greater
it is worth noting that the expansion of paddy field is not only affected by
than 1 indicated that anthropogenic activities have greater importance
climate change, but also has an impact on regional climate (Huang et al.,
than climate change, whereas a value less than 1 indicated that climate
2022). However, this study focused on the driving factors of paddy field
change has greater importance than anthropogenic activities. A value of
expansion, and primarily provided a feasible approach for separating the
1 indicates that the impacts of both factors are equal. The CEI reflected
relative contributions of climate change and anthropic activities from
the combined effects of climate change and anthropogenic activities in
the perspective of influencing factors of paddy field expansion. Due to
each grid. Based on the difference between the 2020 simulation scenario
the model and data limitation, the impact of paddy expansion on
(Scenario 4) and baseline scenario (Scenario 1), the CEI was calculated
regional climate was not considered in the study.
by subtracting the individual effects of climate change (ACI) and
anthropogenic activities (CCI). A value greater than 0 indicates that
2.3.2. Scenario simulation
climate change and anthropogenic activities have a synergistic effect on
The relative and interactive effects of climate change and anthro­
paddy expansion. A value less than 0 indicates that both have an
pogenic activities were estimated by comparing four scenarios in 2020
inhibitory effect on paddy expansion, and a value of 0 indicates that no
with different settings of climatic factors and anthropogenic factors
interactive effect exists. The formulas are as follows:
(Table 1). Scenario 1, as the baseline, was based on the real climatic
conditions and anthropogenic conditions in 1995. Similarly, scenario 4 RII = ACI/CCI (3)
was based on the real climatic conditions and anthropogenic conditions
in 2020. In contrast, both scenario 2 and scenario 3 were hypothetical CEI = 1 − [(Sscenario2 − Sscenario1 ) + (Sscenario3 − Sscenario1 )]/(Sscenario4
scenarios. In scenario 2, the climatic factors were hypothesized to be − Sscenario1 ) (4)
constant in 2020, whereas only the anthropogenic activities were sup­
posed to influence the paddy field expansion. Conversely, in scenario 3,
3. Results
the anthropogenic factors were assumed to be constant in 2020, with
only climate change affecting paddy field expansion. Based on the re­
3.1. Temporal evolution of climate and anthropogenic activities
sults of these four simulation scenarios, the relative effects and com­
bined effects of both climate change and anthropogenic activities can be
Fig. A1 illustrates a gradual warming and wetting climate in NSP
estimated. Additionally, it should be noted that various complex factors
since 1980. Both mean annual temperature and mean monthly tem­
affect paddy fields besides climate change and anthropogenic activities,
perature in the crop growing season in the NSP presented significantly
as discussed in previous studies (Chen et al., 2020; Dong et al., 2016b).
increasing trends during the period of 1980–2020, by increasing rates of
Thus, some degree of accuracy loss is inevitable while considering only
0.25 ℃/decade (p less than 0.05) and 0.26 ℃/decade (p less than
these two factors. Furthermore, the PLUS model also has certain errors.
0.001), respectively. Accordingly, the 10-year average value of the
In light of this, the reference scenario, which used both climatic and
annual mean temperature increased from 3.84 ◦ C for 1995–2005 to
anthropogenic factors in 2020, was designed to validate the accuracy by
3.91 ◦ C for 2010–2020. Although in 2010, the climate in NSP experi­
comparison with the actual paddy fields area in scenario 4 (real paddy
enced a sharply cold trend, the annual crop-growing season temperature
area conditions in 2020).
was not affected in the same period. The 10-year average value of
temperature in the growing season changed from 14.69 ◦ C for the period
2.3.3. Indicators for impact analysis
1995–2005 to 14.83 ◦ C for the period 2010–2020. Meanwhile, the mean
Four potentially relevant indicators were proposed for the impact
annual precipitation in NSP showed an increasing trend, reflecting a
analysis of climate change and anthropogenic activities on paddy field
wetting climate trend, but the trend was not statistically significant.
expansion, including the anthropogenic contribution index (ACI), cli­
Anthropogenic activities, especially socioeconomic factors, can also
matic contribution index (CCI), relative importance index (RII) and
play an important role in paddy field expansion, since the growth of
combined effects index (CEI). For each 30 m × 30 m grid, ACI was
population and economy may stimulate the demand for crop con­
calculated to assess the effect of climate change effects by comparing the
sumption (Clauss et al., 2016; Fitrawaty et al., 2023). As shown in
difference between the baseline scenario (Scenario 1) and anthropo­
Fig. A2, the total population of the NSP first experienced an increasing
genic effects only scenario (Scenario 2); CCI was employed to determine
trend since 1995 and then decreased after 2011. The population ur­
the effect of anthropogenic activities by comparing the difference be­
banization rate increased from 51.0% in 1995 to 61.9% in 2020. Addi­
tween baseline scenario (Scenario 1) and climatic effects only scenario
tionally, the GDP in NSP increased by 14.54 million yuan from 1995 to
(Scenario 3). For both ACI and CEI, a value greater than 0 indicates that
2020, and the primary industry contributed 6.45 million yuan,
anthropogenic activities or climate change has a positive impact on

Table 2
The area of paddy fields and their proportion in cropland in the cities of the northern part of China (NSP) during 1995–2020.
1995 2020 1995–2020
Area/km2 Proportion/% Area/km2 Proportion/% Annual growth rate/%

Hegang 453.38 16.73 3449.66 77.53 26.44

Jiamusi 1758.02 40.25 12007.78 79.76 23.32
Shuangyashan 427.52 19.47 3906.36 65.34 32.55
Total (NSP) 2638.89 28.45 19363.80 75.99 25.35

5
D. Liu et al.
Fig. 3. The spatial distribution and area of paddy field in the northern part of China (NSP) in 1995 and 2020. (a) the spatial distribution in 1995; (b) the spatial
distribution in 2020; (c) paddy field area by county in NSP. Note: HG*: the district of Hegang; LB: Luobei; SYS*: the district of Shuangyashan; JX: Jixian; YY: Youyi;
RH: Raohe; BQ: Baoqing; JMS*: the district of Jiamusi; HN: Huanan; TY: Tangyuan; HC: Huachuan; TJ: Tongjiang; FY: Fuyuan; FJ: Fujin.
accounting for approximately 44.4%.
3.2. Spatial-temporal pattern of paddy expansion
Table 2 presents the area of paddy fields in the three cities of NSP
during the period 1995–2020. It was found that the total area of paddy
fields increased tremendously in NSP, from 2638.88 km2 in 1995 to
19363.80 km2 in 2020, and its proportion in total cropland also
increased from 28.45% in 1995 to 75.99% in 2020. Thus, the past 25
years have seen an increase of 16724.92 km2 paddy fields and an
average annual increase of 669 km2. For each city in the NSP, the paddy
fields of Hegang, Jiamusi and Shuangyashan increased by 2996.31 km2,
10249.77 km2 and 3478.84 km2, respectively, with the highest annual
growth rate in Shuangyashan (32.55%), followed by Hegang (26.44%)
and Jiamusi (23.32%). Fig. 3 further highlights the spatial distribution
of paddy fields in the NSP. The paddy fields were concentrated in the
western NSP in 1995 and significantly expanded northeast in 2020. The
expansion was particularly pronounced in the counties of Fujin, Fuyuan
and Tongjiang, all of which had substantial expansion of 3221.90 km2,
3032.78 km2 and 2662.15 km2, respectively, accounting for 53.31% of
the total expansion area in the NSP.
Fig. 4 displays that the NSP experienced significant interchange be­
tween paddy fields and other land use types during 1995–2020, espe­
cially between paddy fields and dry fields. The lost paddy fields were
mainly converted into dry fields, accounting for 79.07% (327.97 km2) of
the total paddy field loss. Furthermore, dry fields were the predominant
contributor to new paddy fields, followed by unused land and forestland,
which was consistent with a previous study (T. Liu et al., 2018; Liu et al.,
2022). The dry fields, as the major source of newly claimed paddy fields,
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Ecological Indicators 154 (2023) 110543
contributed to 12987.58 km2 (75.78%) of paddy expansion during
1995–2020. Meanwhile, unused land and forestland, as secondary
sources, contributed 1936.67 km2 and 1883.08 km2, accounting for
11.30% and 10.99% of the total paddy expansion area, respectively.
3.3. Different scenario simulations
The area of paddy fields in the NSP in 2020 was evaluated by Markov
chain approaches based on the PLUS model, and its spatial distribution
was simulated by the CARS module. For the convenience of comparison
and computation intuitively, the number of paddy fields’ grids were
used to instead of paddy fields area. The results revealed that the
number of paddy field grids was 15,558,066 in the reference scenario,
and the simulation accuracy was 72.31%. Hence, it can be concluded
that the paddy field expansion simulated by the PLUS model was reliable
and can be applied in the following analysis in NSP.
The NSP contained a total of paddy field grids of 2,932,073 in 1995
(Scenario 1), and 21,515,285 in 2020 (Scenario 4), respectively. Ac­
cording to the scenario simulation in the PLUS model, the number of
simulated accurately paddy field grids was 15,388,300 in Scenario 2
(only considering anthropogenic activities), and 15,785,373 in Scenario
3 (only considering climate change), respectively. Thus, at the regional
scale, the ACI and CCI for the whole NSP were estimated to be 67.03%
and 69.17%, respectively. The RII was estimated to be 96.91%, lower
than 1, indicating that the relative effects of climate change were
slightly larger than those of anthropogenic activities on paddy field
expansion in NSP during 1995–2020. In addition, the CEI was calculated
to be − 36.20%, which was lower than 0 and implied that climate change
and anthropogenic activities generally had an inhibitory interaction
D. Liu et al. Ecological Indicators 154 (2023) 110543

Fig. 4. The spatial change in paddy fields in NSP during 1995–2020. (a) expansion and loss of paddy fields; (b) LUCC Sankey map; (c) proportion of different land use
types converted to paddy fields.

Fig. 5. The relative importance of climate change and anthropogenic activities at the county scale.

7
D. Liu et al.
Fig. 6. Spatial distribution of (a) anthropogenic contribution index (ACI), (b) climatic contribution index (CCI), (c) relative importance index (RII) and (d) combined
effects index (CEI) in the northern part of China (NSP).
effect on paddy expansion.
At the city scale, the effect of climate change was observed to be
slightly stronger than anthropogenic activities in Hegang and Jiamusi,
whereas the opposite was in Shuangyashan. The CEIs of the three cities
were all lower than 0, meaning that the combined effect of climate
change and anthropogenic activities was inhibitory. The RII at the
county scale is shown in Fig. 5. Compared with the central NSP, the
paddy field expansion in the northern NSP was disturbed more signifi­
cantly by climate change. Notably, among all the counties, only the CEIs
of Shuangyashan city and Fuyuan were greater than 0, indicating that
climate change and anthropogenic activities had a synergistic effect on
paddy expansion here.
3.4. Impact analysis
At the grid scale, the 30-m simulation scenario results were aggre­
gated into fractional scenario maps within a 1-km × 1-km window and
presented a map of the relative impacts of climate change and anthro­
pogenic activities on paddy expansion (Fig. 6). First, for ACI, 98.61% of
pixels were larger than 0, and 1.17% of pixels were lower than 0,
revealing that anthropogenic activities had a positive impact on the vast
majority of grids in the NSP. Specifically, the grids with ACI values be­
tween 0.9 and 1.0 were the highest, accounting for 57.60% of the total
number of grids, mainly located in the counties of Fujin, Suibin, Baoqing
and Tongjiang. There were 12.01% of grids with values of 0–0.5, with a
concentration in the northern NSP (Fuyuan, Tongjiang, and Fujin). High
ACI values greater than or equal to 1.0 accounted for 11.91%, mainly
concentrated in the western NSP (Huanan, Baoqing, Fujin, Luobei,
Huachuan and Tangyuan), where abundant paddy fields existed in 1995.
This means that the expansion of paddy fields by anthropogenic activ­
ities followed a path dependence in space, tending to expand around the
areas where paddy fields already existed.
Second, the CCI exhibited a spatial distribution similar to that of the
ACI at the regional scale, as shown in Fig. 6 (b). There were 98.91% of
grids with CCI values larger than 0 and 0.94% of grids with CCI values
lower than 0, meaning that climate change also had a positive impact on
8
Ecological Indicators 154 (2023) 110543
the vast majority of the NSP. Specifically, the grids with CCI values
between 0.9 and 1.0 were the highest, accounting for 60.92%, and
concentrated in the counties of Fujin, Suibin, Tongjiang, Baoqing and
Luobei. Grids with values of 0–0.5 accounted for 10.54%, mainly located
in the northeastern NSP (Fuyuan, Fujin, and Tongjiang). The grids with
high CCI values greater than or equal to 1.0 were mainly concentrated in
the western NSP (Huanan, Baoqing, Fujin, Luobei, Huachuan and Tan­
gyuan), similar to the ACI.
Third, the spatial pattern of the relative importance between climate
change and anthropogenic activities at the 1-km grid scale is shown in
Fig. 6 (c). It was found that at the regional scale, climate change
generally had a slightly greater effect than anthropogenic activities on
paddy field expansion. However, their relative importance had spatial
disparities at the grid scale. For the grids with RII equal to 1.0, where the
climate and anthropogenic factors played the same role in paddy field
expansion, they accounted for 9.02% of the grids and were sparsely
scattered in the NSP. The grids with RII values larger than 1.0, where the
effects of anthropogenic activities were stronger than those of climate
change on paddy field expansion, accounted for 51.17% of the grids. The
other 39.81% of the grids had RII values less than 1.0, where climate
change had a stronger influence on paddy field expansion. According to
all values except for equaling 1 of RII in all grids, they were further
divided into four categories: higher-level climate change effect (0, 0.9],
high-level climate change effect (0.9,1), high-level anthropogenic ac­
tivities effect (1,1.1), higher-level anthropogenic activities effect [1.1,
+∞). It was observed that 36.75% of the grids were high-level anthro­
pogenic activities effect, ranking as the first major type; 22.07% of the
grids were high-level climate change effect, ranking as the second major
type; 17.74% of the grids were higher-level climate change effect,
ranking as the third major type; other 14.42% of the grids were higher-
level anthropogenic activities effect. It is also worth noting that although
paddy field expansion was more slightly influenced by climate change
than anthropogenic activities at the regional scale, the relative impor­
tance of climate change was greater than that of anthropogenic activities
at the grid scale.
Finally, the results of the CEI indicated that climate change and
D. Liu et al.
Fig. 7. The pathways of climate change affecting anthropogenic activities. ①-④ indicates the pathway 1-pathway 4, respectively.
anthropogenic activities presented an inhibitory effect on paddy field
expansion in 88.60% of the grids, and a synergistic effect in 11.23% of
the grids in NSP. It means that for most grids, climate change and
anthropogenic activities had an inhibitory effect on paddy field expan­
sion, which was distributed over the whole region. The high inhibitory
values were observed to mainly distribute in the west, such as Huanan,
Baoqing and Luobei. Furthermore, the grids with a synergistic effect of
climate change and anthropogenic activities were mainly distributed in
the northeast NSP, such as Fuyuan, Fujin and Tongjiang. In addition,
CEIs were observed that a mere 8.25% of the grids have values greater
than both ACI and CCI, indicating that the combined effects of climate
change and anthropogenic activities were generally lower than their
individual effects on paddy expansion in this study area.
4. Discussion
4.1. The role of climate change in paddy expansion
The results showed that the regional CCI was 69.17%, and 98.91% of
the grids had a CCI larger than 0, which suggested that climatic factors
play a key role in paddy field expansion dynamics in NSP from 1995 to
2020. Our findings were consistent with other studies. Specifically,
climate change, especially the increasing temperature has identified to
be a significant influencing factor in explaining the location of agricul­
ture (Gao and Liu, 2011; Liu et al., 2021). The long-term climate ob­
servations in Heilongjiang Province have presented a warming trend
from 1960 to 2015 (Zhou et al., 2020). Likewise, the study area NSP
showed a similar trend (Fig. A. 1). Due to climate change in northeast
China, the paddy fields expanded into mid-high latitude regions, with
the 0 ℃ isotherm moving northward by 190.5 km and westward by 99.9
km during 2000–2019 (Liu et al., 2022). Paddy field expansion is
extremely related to climate change because the changes in temperature
and precipitation can determine the agroecological and hydrothermal
conditions of rice growth and further influence rice production, espe­
cially for cold regions with high latitudes (Zhang et al., 2019).
The relationship between climate change and paddy expansion can
be explained in different ways. First, due to the temperature- and
precipitation-sensitive characteristic, climate change may cause direct
changes in crop phenology of rice (Zhang et al., 2019). It was found that
the remarkable increase of air temperature brought out a corresponding
increase in water temperature, prolonging the safe period of rice culti­
vation, and enabling greater flexibility of variation in the cropping
season in cold regions (Ohta and Kimura, 2007). Second, NSP, at middle
and high latitudes, was very short of heat resources. Insufficient heat
was the main factor limiting the increase in production potential for rice
growth duration. Accordingly, climate warming provides a satisfactory
environment for paddy field growth, subsequently, expanding the po­
tential suitable region here (Liu et al., 2022). Third, the frost disaster is
one of the main agrometeorological disasters in rice production in
northeast China, which endangers high and stable yield (Song et al.,
9
Ecological Indicators 154 (2023) 110543
2015). Studies have revealed that as climate gets warmer, the frequency
and intensity of rice initial frost disasters significantly reduce, and cold
stress on rice growth potentially alleviates with low growing season
temperature (Liu et al., 2020).
4.2. The role of anthropogenic activities in paddy expansion
Previous studies reported that the quantity and spatial variation of
cropland had been influenced by anthropogenic activities, such as the
increasing population, agriculture technology, economic development
and government policies (Liu et al., 2022; Xin et al., 2020). Our findings
stated that the regional ACI was 67.03%, and 98.61% of the grids had an
ACI larger than 0. The ACI with high values of 0.9–1 was the highest,
accounting for 57.52%. These suggested human activities had a positive
impact on the vast majority of the NSP. This may be explained by the fact
that the growth of the population and GDP provided the increasing
market demand, more labor and stronger economic basis for rice culti­
vation (Fitrawaty et al., 2023; Clauss et al., 2016). In particular, with
high yield and good taste, the rice produced in the NSP has been widely
welcomed and praised by consumers in China, making the demand for
rice boom and the market sales channels stable (Liu et al., 2022). The
interest orientation has greatly increased the enthusiasm of farmers to
grow rice. In addition, the effect of anthropogenic activities can also be
reflected in the transformation of rice cultivation from labor-intensive to
science-and-technology-intensive under the influence of scientific and
technological progress, such as the popularization of rice seedling sheds,
the cultivation of excellent varieties, the input of agricultural machinery
power, and the increase in the amount of chemical fertilizer application
(Dong et al., 2016b; Liu et al., 2022; Song et al., 2015). All these mea­
sures have contributed to the increase in yields and the further increase
in farmers’ incomes, consequently resulting in the further reclamation of
paddy fields.
4.3. Combined effects of climate change and anthropogenic activities
In the decision process, policy-makers are concerned with not only
the relative contributions of factors, but also the combined effects of
these factors (Bai et al., 2019). This study revealed the combined effects
of climate change and anthropogenic activities were generally inhibi­
tory in the NSP, and the combined effects were lower than their indi­
vidual effects. Managers could use this information to guide farmers’
practices to adapt to climate conditions changes, and thereby construct a
sustainable rice production that balances agriculture and ecology.
This study attempted to analyze potential pathways from the
perspective of climate change affecting anthropogenic activities, and
thereby revealed their combined effects on paddy fields expansion
(Fig. 7). Several studies have demonstrated adaptation practices are
common strategies to mitigate the effect of climate change on agricul­
tural development (Jin et al., 2020), such as adjustments in land size and
human policies, as well as developing improved varieties, techniques,
D. Liu et al.
and the use of agrochemicals, etc. (Ojo and Baiyegunhi, 2019). In order
to better examine whether climate change triggered the behavior of area
adjustment directly, or indirectly by way of other adaptation measures,
these adaption strategies were divided into three categories, including
adjusting cultivated area, effective policies from government and agri­
cultural sector, and other adaptive measures that could affect rice yield.
Wang et al. (2005) posited that rice yield was an objective ruler for
farmers to perceive the impact of climate change in the course of human
adaptation to such changes. Thus, rice yield is a key agency in our
framework. As Fig. 7 shows, pathway 1 is the most direct way in which
climate change influences past rice yield, thereby affecting farmers’
decision-making on the cultivated area. This explanation can be sup­
ported by the findings from Zhang et al. (2019), which showed the rice
yield significantly increased in Heilongjiang province with raised tem­
peratures. Therefore, farmers tend to expand rice planting area once
they perceive the link between increasing rice yield and warming
condition.
Additionally, the expansion of paddy rice is reflected not only in the
expansion of the area, but also in the northward shift of direction (Liu
et al., 2022). According to the rice cropping regionalization of Hei­
longjiang Province in 1988, Fuyuan, Hegang, Luobei and Raohe belong
to the cold and cool sub-suitable rice planting areas, and other areas of
NSP belong to the rice suitable areas (Mei et al., 1988). Compared with
the latter, the energy resources of the cool sub-suitable rice planting
areas can only ensure the planting of early maturing rice varieties, which
are prone to low temperature cold damage. Our findings support this
consensus. In this study, the net paddy cultivated area in Fuyuan,
Hegang, Luobei and Raohe ranged from 530.15 km2 in 1995 to 5932.31
km2 in 2020, with an increase of 5932.31 km2, accounting for 1/3 of the
total expansion in NSP. Furthermore, Fuyuan, as the northernmost area
of the NSP, has the largest variation in paddy fields, and the growth rate
of paddy fields has reached 72.08%. Overall, climate warming has
changed thermal conditions and rice cultivated area in the sub-suitable
region, and is projected to further expand the potentially suitable region
(Liu et al., 2022; Xin et al., 2020).
Pathway 2 emphasizes that climate change can lead to other adaptive
measures (i.e., variety change, technology improvement, the increased
input of fertilizer and irrigation), thereby affecting rice yield and further
promoting the adjustment of cultivated areas. For instance, Dong et al.
(2016b) demonstrated that greenhouse nursery technology was an
important artificial warming approach to avoid chilling hazards of rice,
and the significant correlation was found between the amount of
greenhouse film consumption and paddy fields area. For NSP with high
latitudes and low temperatures, past warming has provided satisfactory
thermal conditions for rice planting in this region. However, the recent
reported that the insufficient growth, with less dry matter accumulation
of rice biomass, was attributed to climate warming, thereby resulting in
a potential decline in overall yield (Liu et al., 2016; Liu et al., 2020).
Therefore, developing heat tolerant varieties and mid-late maturity va­
rieties were viewed as effective ways to guarantee the rice yield (Liu
et al., 2020; Zhang et al., 2019). Once more varieties that excel in rice
yields are promoted, farmers’ enthusiasm for rice cultivation is likely to
be further stimulated.
Pathway 3 is that the relevant measures taken by the local govern­
ment or the agricultural sector adapting to climate change can stimulate
farmers to expand paddy fields, such as the dissemination of effective
information regarding the potential impacts of climate change on crops
and adaptation measures, policy support in the form of technical, ma­
terial and financial assistance, and agricultural infrastructure construc­
tion. For instance, the Chinese government proposed the agricultural
subsidy policy in 2004 and rescinded the agricultural tax in 2006, as
well as carried out an agricultural structural adjustment policy in Hei­
longjiang Province during 1989–2002 (Liu et al., 2022). The High-
standard Farmland Construction Project and Two Rivers and One Lake
Project were implemented to improve farmland quality since 2010 in
Heilongjiang Province (Zhang et al., 2019). All these agricultural
10
Ecological Indicators 154 (2023) 110543
policies mobilized farmers’ enthusiasm and helped to promote paddy
expansion in the NSP.
Pathway 4 is the ‘Matthew effect’ resulting from the expansion of
paddy fields. Wang et al. (2006) believed that once the paddy field area
changes, the income on an area would grow exponentially. Likewise, Ojo
and Baiyegunhi (2019) reported that farm size positively influenced
farm net income. Accordingly, it can be inferred that the benefits of
newly cultivated paddy fields caused by climate change will act as a
further incentive for farmers once again to expand the paddy field area,
resulting in the ‘Matthew effect’.
4.4. Implications and limitations
The protection and scientific utilization of cultivated land has
become an important topic in the strategy of ensuring national food
security in the context of ’Storing Grain in Land and Technology’. Driven
by climate change and anthropogenic activities, the regional agricul­
tural structure in northeast China has undergone noticeable changes.
Although the change in hydrothermal conditions can increase produc­
tion potential and bring great opportunities for agricultural production,
the potential risks are also not obviously neglectable, such as water
stress and extreme weather events (Hu et al., 2019; Zhang et al., 2019).
Furthermore, the soil fertility and ecosystem function suffered a drastic
decline in this region over the past 30 years, due to the intensive utili­
zation of arable land and overfertilization practices.
Therefore, it is imperative to prioritize adherence to natural rhythms
and economic laws, as well as the optimization of soil–water resource
allocation and human-earth relationships, to achieve sustainable
development in modern agriculture throughout Northeast China (Liu,
2020). Developing new agronomic management strategies and guiding
farmers to adopt effective measures are vitally essential (Liu et al.,
2022). Our research proposes potential suggestions to guide farmers or
agricultural technicians to respond scientifically to climate change and
safeguard the ecosystem in this region. Firstly, the government, stake­
holders and donor agencies should provide rice farmers more with
available resources and adaption strategies, including education on
disaster prevention, guidance on agricultural techniques and credit fa­
cilities, to assist them in adopting appropriate climate change adaption
practices (Ojo and Baiyegunhi, 2019). Secondly, it is recommended to
adjust the planting rate and develop new rice cultivars to tackle the
climate change, which have been reported to be less costly and easily
achievable (Zhang et al., 2019; Liu et al., 2022). Thirdly, local govern­
ments should intensify their efforts towards industry base construction
and call for the replacement of groundwater with surface, ensuring
enough water resources for the sustainable development of the rice in­
dustry (Momm et al., 2022). Additionally, more attention should be
given to ’Black Soil’ protection, and green pesticides should be used to
replace traditional pesticides for realizing the green development of the
rice industry (Jolodar et al., 2021; Liu et al., 2022).
This study systematically evaluates the contributions of climate
change and human activities to paddy field expansion with the purpose
of spatial identification and quantitative separation as the core. In the
attribution analysis section, this study attempts to analyze the different
paths in which farmers adopt adaptive behaviors for paddy field
expansion in the context of climate change, borrowing from the ‘driving
force-pattern display’ of the framework analysis method. Compared to
existing studies, it introduced scenario analysis effectively to determine
the respective contributions of climatic and anthropogenic factors to
paddy field expansion. It also breaks the scale problem and reflects the
respective contribution of two factors in different scales of region,
county and raster by presenting the spatial distribution of paddy fields
intuitively. This study provides a way to solve the complex high-latitude
nonlinear relationship between land use change, climate change and
human activities, which has the advantage of being simplified and can
be applied to both future projections. In view of data accessibility of free
grid-based climatic and anthropogenic data, this approach has potential
D. Liu et al. Ecological Indicators 154 (2023) 110543

Fig. A1. Annual mean temperature, mean temperature in the crop growing season, and annual mean precipitation during 1980–2020 in the NSP. Note: The black
dashed lines represent the trend of mean annual temperature, rice-growing season mean temperature and annual precipitation in the northern part of China. The red
dashed lines represent the average of each decade. (For interpretation of the references to colour in this figure legend, the reader is referred to the web version of
this article.)

applications in other regions with intensive interactions between
climate change and human activities. These applications are also
beneficial for validating the robustness and universality.
However, this study inevitably had a few limitations. First, only GDP
and population were considered anthropogenic factors in scenario 2 due
to data availability. It is necessary to take more anthropogenic factors
into consideration, such as technology improvement and the increased
input of fertilizer. Second, the impact of paddy expansion on climate
change was not considered in our study. In fact, it is a general consensus
that interactions and complex processes between climate change and
paddy areas change. Therefore, how to analyze the process of mutual
influence of these two factors and quantify their effects on each other
will be a vital hot topic, as well as the focus of our future work.
Nevertheless, the findings can facilitate appropriate measures to inter­
vene and adapt to paddy expansion, thereby promoting the rational use
of land resources and protecting ecosystem services, which is essential

11
D. Liu et al.
Fig. A2. Temporal evolution of (a) population and (b) urbanization during 1995–2020 in the northern part of China (NSP).
for the protection of high-quality arable land, food security and adap­
tation to climate change.
5. Conclusion
This study focuses on elucidating the relative contributions of
driving factors behind paddy fields change, which holds significant
implications for global food security and sustainable agriculture. By
proposing four indicators and simulating scenarios, the relative effects
of climate change and anthropogenic activities on paddy field change
were quantified. Furthermore, this study attempted to analyze the
different paths in which farmers adopt adaptive behaviors for paddy
field expansion in the context of climate change, borrowing from the
“driving force-pattern display” of the framework analysis method.
Compared to existing studies that adopted model analysis and mathe­
matical statistical methods, this study provides a way to solve the
complex multivariant nonlinear relationship between land use change,
climate change and human activities. It possesses the advantage of
quantitatively comparing the effects of different factors and breaks the
scale problem by revealing the spatial variations in these effects.
Furthermore, in view of the data accessibility of free grid-based climatic
and anthropogenic data, this approach has potential applications in
other regions, especially in underdeveloped regions with weak data
accessibility. These applications are also beneficial for validating the
robustness and universality.
Our case study in the northern part of the Sanjiang Plain (NSP)
showed that, the dramatic increase of paddy fields area was observed,
expanding from 2638.88 km2 in 1995 to 19363.80 km2 in 2020. Slight
differences in the relative contributions of climate change and human
activities to paddy expansion, and the factor effects are scale-dependent.
At the regional scale, the effect of climate change was slightly larger
12
Ecological Indicators 154 (2023) 110543
than that of anthropogenic activities. At the city level, Hegang and
Jiamusi were more influenced by climate change, whereas Shuangya­
shan was the opposite. At the county level, the paddy field expansion of
the central NSP was dominated by anthropogenic activities, whereas
that of the northern NSP was disturbed more by climate change. At the
grid scale, 51.17% of the grids had anthropogenic activities contributing
more than climate change to paddy field expansion. Additionally, the
combined effects of climate change and anthropogenic activities were
inhibitory in most of our study area. In conclusion, the indicators
established in this study and the findings can facilitate appropriate
measures to intervene and adapt to paddy expansion, thereby promoting
the rational use of land resources and protecting ecosystem services,
which is essential for the protection of high-quality arable land, food
security and adaptation to climate change.
CRediT authorship contribution statement
Dan Liu: Methodology, Formal analysis, Data curation, Writing –
original draft. Wenfeng Chen: Visualization, Writing – review & edit­
ing. Linna Li: Conceptualization, Supervision, Writing – review &
editing, Funding acquisition.
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.
Data availability
Data will be made available on request.
D. Liu et al. Ecological Indicators 154 (2023) 110543

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