Recently, the Smart Agriculture Team at the Institute of Agricultural Resources and Regional Planning (IARRP) of the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences (CAAS) developed a long-term land use classification framework that reveals land use dynamics in the Jianghan Plain under the rapid expansion of rice–crayfish co-cultivation systems. The findings were published in Remote Sensing of Environment under the title "Characterizing land use changes triggered by crop-aquaculture co-cultivation from 2013 to 2022 based on a robust classification framework: Illustration in Jianghan Plain, China."

Crop–aquaculture co-cultivation systems, recognized for their capacity to improve resource-use efficiency, have emerged as an important pathway for sustainable agricultural development. Over the past decade, the rice–crayfish system has expanded rapidly, causing significant shifts in land use. Accurately identifying the temporal patterns and spatial trajectories of these transformations is crucial for understanding potential trade-offs in ecosystem services and socio-economic outcomes. However, the limited availability of historical training samples and the complexity of land use classification remain major challenges, leaving long-term land use change under rice–crayfish expansion insufficiently characterized.

To address these issues, the study proposed a land use mapping framework designed for contexts with both limited samples and complex classification requirements. The framework integrates historical sample transfer, data augmentation strategies, and hierarchical classification methods, offering a transferable solution for monitoring land system changes under rapid transformation.

The research highlights the trans-formative impact of rice–crayfish expansion on traditional land use patterns, underscoring that its growth primarily encroaches upon conventional rice cultivation areas. These insights provide scientific support for developing adaptive land management strategies that balance ecological sustainability with regional food security.

Land use transitions in the Jianghan Plain across different periods

The paper's first author is Dr. Wei Yanbing, Associate Research Fellow at IARRP-CAAS. Professors Wu Wenbin and Li Wenjuan serve as co-corresponding authors. The research was supported by the State Key Laboratory of Efficient Utilization of Arid and Semi-arid Region Farmland, the National Key R&D Program of China (2024YFD2301100, 2023YFD2300500), and the National Natural Science Foundation of China (42401440).

Original article: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rse.2025.115142