Land transfer, collective action and the adoption of soil and water conservation measures in the Loess Plateau of China
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Land transfer, collective action and the adoption of soil and water conservation measures in the Loess Plateau of China Rui Jia1 · Qian Lu2 Received: 30 March 2018 / Accepted: 23 April 2020 © Springer Nature B.V. 2020
Abstract Based on the data of 849 rural households in the Loess Plateau of China, this paper uses exploratory factor analysis to study farmers’ participation in collective action from the aspects of information, participation, organization and effect of action. Through Bootstrap mediation effect test, this paper investigates the direct and indirect impacts of land transfer area and period on the soil and water conservation measures of farmers, respectively. The results show that the area of land transfer directly affects the use of terraced fields, plastic film and afforestation, but not the use of water-saving irrigation techniques. The transfer period has a significant direct impact on the adoption of the four measures mentioned above. Although the mediating effect of collective action in the process of land transfer area affecting the use of terraced fields, afforestation and water-saving irrigation techniques is significant, it is not significant on the use of plastic film. The mediating effect of collective action in the process of land transfer period affecting the use of terraced fields and water-saving irrigation techniques is significant, while it is not significant on the use of plastic film and afforestation. Keywords Land transfer · Collective action · Soil and water conservation · Mediation effect · Loess Plateau · China
Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (https://doi.org/10.1007/s1106 9-020-03967-0) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. * Qian Lu [email protected] Rui Jia [email protected] 1
College of Economics and Management, Shanxi University, Taiyuan 030006, China
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College of Economics and Management, Northwest A&F University, No. 3 Taicheng Road, Yangling 712100, Shaanxi, China
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Natural Hazards
1 Introduction Soil and water loss is an epitome of ecological problems in China, especially in Loess Plateau. Due to soil erosion, China annually loses 67 thousands ha of cultivated land, 5 billion tons of soil and 40 million tons of nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium, resulting in an economic loss of 2.4 billion yuan each year. Several studies have shown that soil and water conversation measures, such as engineering, biological and water storage measures, can help prevent soil erosion, increase land productivity, relieve poverty and transform farming, thus benefiting both the economy and the ecology (Kassie et al. 2013), but they have rarely been used by farmers (Shangguan et al. 2008; Willy et al. 2014). Many researches have been carried out on the low adoption rate of soil and water conservation measures. The following factors are taken into consideration: individual characteristics (gender, age, educational background, ecological cognition, etc.), household characteristics (i
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