| The paper analyzes the process of area changes of cultivated land based on the statistic and investigation data in Wuqi County from 1950 to 2005.It tries to find out the main driving factors on the changes using principal component analysis and multiple linear regressions.The research shows that the total area of arable land in Wuqi County was decreasing 39.6% in the past 50 years, through the four phases of sharp decreasing, fluctuating, sharp increasing and slow decreasing.There was also an obvious downtrend on the average per capita amount of arable land which decreased 81.7%.The changes were mainly influenced by socioeconomic development, population pressure, progress of agricultural science and policies, etc. |