Economic development and agricultural land loss in the Pearl River Delta, China

The Pearl River Delta is developing very rapidly in the last two decades since the adoption of economic reform and open-door policy of China in 1978. Concomitant to this development is the rapid change of landscape in both urban and rural areas. The loss of valuable agricultural land by the encroachment of urban development, especially massive construction sites from land speculation, is very severe recently. This paper examines the relationship between economic development and agricultural land loss in the Pearl River Delta, using Dongguan as a case study. It is found that agricultural land loss has been much aggravated by land speculation as a result of the property bloom in the Pearl River Delta that was induced by the property boom in Hong Kong in the early 1990s. The urban sprawl in the Pearl River Delta is also related to other economic factors, such as rural industrialization, rise of localism, influence from Hong Kong, transport improvement, and lack of land management and monitoring system. There is an urgent need to develop a sustainable land development strategy to protect the fertile agricultural land from further unnecessary losses, especially from land speculation.