The Dujiangyan irrigation system, China’s largest, is one of the world’s most important examples of sustainable agropolitan development, maintained by a relatively decentralised system of governance that minimises bureaucratic oversight and depends on significant local autonomy at many scales down to the household. At its historic core in the Chengdu Plain, the system has supported over 2000 years of near-continuously stable urban culture, as well as some of the world’s highest sustained long-term per-hectare productivity and diversity of grain and other crops, especially considering its high population density, forest cover, general biodiversity and flood management success. During the past decade, rapid urban expansion has turned the Chengdu Plain from a net grain exporter into a grain importer, and has radically transformed its productive functioning and distinctive scattered settlement pattern, reorganising much of the landscape into larger, corporately-managed farms, and more concentrated and infrastructure-intensive settlements of non-farming as well as farming households. Community-scale case studies of spatial-morphological and household socio-economic variants on the regional trend help to articulate what is at stake. Neither market-driven ‘laissez-faire’ rural development nor local state-driven spatial settlement consolidation and corporatisation of production seem to correlate well with important factors of resilience: landscape heterogeneity; crop diversity and food production; permaculture; and flexibility in household independence and choice of livelihood. Management of the irrigation system should be linked to community-based agricultural landscape preservation and productive dwelling, as sources of adaptive capacity crucial to the social-ecological resilience of the city-region, the nation and perhaps all humanity.
AbramsonDB (2016) Periurbanization and the politics of development-as-city-building in China. Cities53: 156–162.
2.
AbramsonDBQiY (2011) ‘Urban–rural integration’ in the earthquake zone: Sichuan’s post-disaster reconstruction and the expansion of the Chengdu metropole. Pacific Affairs84(3): 495–523.
3.
AhrendsAHollingsworthPMBeckschäferP, et al. (2017) China’s fight to halt tree cover loss. Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences284(1854): 2016–2559.
4.
AlbertiM (2016) Cities That Think Like Planets: Complexity, Resilience, and Innovation in Hybrid Ecosystems. Seattle, WA: University of Washington Press.
5.
AngelS (2012) Planet of Cities. Cambridge, MA: Lincoln Institute of Land Policy.
6.
AuC-CHendersonJV (2006) Are Chinese cities too small?The Review of Economic Studies73(256): 549–576.
7.
BielensteinH (1987) Chinese historical demography A.D. 2–1982. Bulletin of the Museum of Far Eastern Antiquities59.
8.
BirdIL (1899) The Yangtze Valley and Beyond; an Account of Journeys in China, Chiefly in the Province of Sze Chuan and among the Man-Tze of the Somo Territory. London: J. Murray.
9.
BramallC (1993) In Praise of Maoist Economic Planning: Living Standards and Economic Development in Sichuan since 1931. Oxford and New York: Clarendon Press and Oxford University Press.
10.
BramallC (1995) Origins of the agricultural ‘miracle’: Some evidence from Sichuan. The China Quarterly143: 731–755.
11.
BrayD (2013) Urban planning goes rural: Conceptualising the ‘new village’. China Perspectives3: 53–62.
12.
Bren d’AmourCReitsmaFBaiocchiG, et al. (2017) Future urban land expansion and implications for global croplands. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences114(34): 8939–8944.
13.
BuchananKM (1970) The Transformation of the Chinese Earth: Aspects of the Evaluation of the Chinese Earth from Earliest Times to Mao Tse-Tung. New York: Praeger.
14.
BuckJLCh’iaoCMXiJDNJ (1943) An Agricultural Survey of Szechwan Province, China. Chunking and New York: Farmers’ Bank of China.
15.
BuckJL, Nanjing Daxue, College of Agriculture and Forestry, et al. (1937) Land Utilization in China, a Study of 16,786 Farms in 168 Localities, and 38,256 Farm Families in Twenty-Two Provinces in China, 1929–1933. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
16.
CabannesYMingZ (2013) Participatory budgeting at scale and bridging the rural−urban divide in Chengdu. Environment and Urbanization26(1): 257–275.
17.
CabellJFOelofseM (2012) An indicator framework for assessing agroecosystem resilience. Ecology and Society17(1): 18.
18.
CaldwellM (1977) China and the environment. In: JeffreyNCaldwellM (eds) Planning and Urbanism in China. Oxford and New York: Pergamon, pp. 103–110.
19.
ChenJ-CZindaJAYehET (2017) Recasting the rural: State, society and environment in contemporary China. Geoforum78(Supplement C): 83–88.
20.
Chengdu Municipal Bureau of Statistics (2014) Grain output of counties each year, 1949–1998. Statistical Yearbooks of Chengdu. Beijing: National Bureau of Statistics of China. Aggregated database available at: http://www.stats.gov.cn/ (accessed 17 November 2014).
21.
Chengdu Municipal People’s Government (2008) Sichuan Sheng Chengdu Shi Renmin Zhengfu Bangongting Zhuanfa Shi Jian Wei ‘Guanyu Tuijin Wo Shi Chuanxi Linpan Baohu Shishi Yijian’ De Tongzhi [Opinion on Promoting the Implementation of Our Municipality’s Preservation of West Sichuan Linpan]. Chengdu: Chengdu Municipal People’s Government.
22.
CummingGS (2011a) Spatial Resilience in Social-Ecological Systems. Dordrecht and New York: Springer.
CummingGSCummingDHRedmanCL (2006) Scale mismatches in social-ecological systems: Causes, consequences, and solutions. Ecology and Society11(1): 14.
25.
DuanPLiuT (2004) Linpan: Shu Wenhua Zhi Shengtai Jiayuan. Chengdu: Sichuan ke xue ji shu chu ban she.
26.
EllisECWangSM (1997) Sustainable traditional agriculture in the Tai Lake region of China. Agriculture, Ecosystems & Environment61(2): 177–193.
27.
ElvinM (1973) The Pattern of the Chinese Past: A Social and Economic Interpretation. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
28.
ElvinM (2004) The Retreat of the Elephants: An Environmental History of China. New Haven, CT and London: Yale University Press.
29.
FangZZhouJ (2011) Renkou, Gungdi Yu Chuantong Nongcun Juluo Tixi (1644–1911) Weili [Population, cultivated land and the self-organization of traditional rural settlement – with the case of the linpan settlement system (1644–1911) in Chuanxi Plain. Zhongguo Yuanlin [Chinese Landscape Architecture] 6: 83–87.
30.
FriedmannJ (1979) Basic needs, agropolitan development, and planning from below. World Development7(6): 607–613.
31.
FriedmannJ (1981) The active community: Toward a political-territorial framework for rural development in Asia. Economic Development and Cultural Change29(2): 235–261.
32.
FriedmannJ (1985) Political and technical moments in development: Agropolitan development revisited. Environment and Planning D: Society and Space3(2): 155–167.
33.
FriedmannJ (1988) Life Space and Economic Space: Essays in Third World Planning. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Books.
34.
FriedmannJDouglassM (1978) Agropolitan development: Towards a new strategy for regional planning in Asia. In: LoF-cKamalS and United Nations Centre for Regional Development (eds) Growth Pole Strategy and Regional Development Policy: Asian Experience and Alternative Approaches. Oxford and New York: Pergamon Press, pp. 163–192.
35.
GüneralpBPerlsteinASSetoKC (2015) Balancing urban growth and ecological conservation: A challenge for planning and governance in China. AMBIO44(6): 532–543.
36.
GuoS (1993) Sichuan Lishi Nongye Dili. [The Historical Agricultural Geography of Sichuan Province]. Chengdu: Sichuan Renmin Chubanshe.
37.
HaleMA (2013) Reconstructing the rural: Peasant organizations in a Chinese movement for alternative development. PhD dissertation, University of Washington, USA.
38.
HaywardJ (2017) Beyond the ownership question: Who will till the land? The new debate on China’s agricultural production. Critical Asian Studies49(4): 523–545.
39.
HouX (2013) Community Capitalism in China: The State, the Market, and Collectivism. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press.
40.
HuJ (2015) Coming home to the land: Natural farming as therapeutic landscape experience in the Chengdu Plain, China. PhD dissertation, University of Washington, USA.
41.
HuangCDengLGaoX, et al. (2013) Rural housing land consolidation and transformation of rural villages under the ‘coordinating urban and rural construction land’ policy: A case of Chengdu City, China. Low Carbon Economy4(3): 95–103.
42.
HuangPC (1990) The Peasant Family and Rural Development in the Yangzi Delta, 1350–1988. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
43.
HuangPC, American Council of Learned Societies and History E-Book Project (1985) The Peasant Economy and Social Change in North China. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
44.
JiangLDengXSetoKC (2012) Multi-level modeling of urban expansion and cultivated land conversion for urban hotspot counties in China. Landscape and Urban Planning108(2): 131–139.
45.
JonesFO (1954) Tukiangyien: China’s ancient irrigation system. Geographical Review44(4): 543–559.
46.
KremenCIlesABaconC (2012) Diversified farming systems: An agroecological, systems-based alternative to modern industrial agriculture. Ecology and Society17(4): 44.
47.
LeitãoAB (2006) Measuring Landscapes: A Planner’s Handbook. Washington, DC: Island Press.
48.
LemanE (2005) Metropolitan regions: New challenges for an urbanizing China. In: World Bank/IPEA Urban Research Symposium, Brasilia, Brazil, 4 April 2005. Ottawa and Shanghai: Chreod.
49.
LiD (2007) An investigation of land subletting during republican period on Chengdu Plain. Frontiers of History in China2(3): 445–467.
50.
LiLFriedlMXinQ, et al. (2014) Mapping crop cycles in China using Modis-Evi time series. Remote Sensing6(3): 2473–2493.
51.
LiW (2014) Hezuo Jiaoliu, Zhihui Xiangcun – Sichuan Daxue Guoji Jiaoliu Ying (Ying-Han Duizhao) [Cooperation and Exchange, Knowing and Rendering the Countryside – Sichuan University International Exchange Camp (English Chinese Bilingual Report)]. Chengdu: Sichuan University Press.
52.
LiangH (2015) Toward a Resilient Landscape: The Eco-cultural Redevelopment in Rural Chengdu Plain. Master’s Thesis, Landscape Architecture, Seattle, WA: University of Washington.
53.
LiuJ (2010) China’s road to sustainability. Science328(5974): 50.
54.
LiuYKazumiYRenY (2005) Multifunctional roles of irrigation water and rice fields in Dujiangyan, China. In: ToriyamaKHeongKLHardyB (eds) Rice Is Life: Scientific Perspectives for the 21st Century: Proceedings of the World Rice Research Conference, Tsukuba, Japan. Manila: International Rice Research Institute (IRRI), pp. 331–333.
55.
LooneyKRithmireME (2016) Urbanization with Chinese characteristics? China’s gamble for modernization. Harvard Business School Working Paper, No. 16–083.
56.
LooneyKE (2015) China’s campaign to build a new socialist countryside: Village modernization, peasant councils, and the Ganzhou model of rural development. The China Quarterly224: 909–932.
57.
Lora-WainwrightA (2014) Grassroots perspectives on relocation: Threats and opportunities. Positions: Asia Critique22(3): 661–689.
58.
ModelskiG (2003) World Cities: –3000 to 2000. Washington, DC: FAROS2000.
59.
MurpheyR (1980) The Fading of the Maoist Vision: City and Country in China’s Development. New York: Methuen.
60.
NeedhamJWangLLuG-D (1971) Science and Civilization in China. V.4 Physics and Physical Technology. Part 3 Civil Engineering and Nautics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
61.
NgaiPChanJ (2012) Global capital, the state, and Chinese workers. Modern China38(4): 383–410.
62.
OstromE (1990) Governing the Commons: The Evolution of Institutions for Collective Action. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press.
63.
PengY (2015) A comparison of two approaches to develop concentrated rural settlements after the 5.12 Sichuan earthquake in China. Habitat International49: 230–242.
64.
Pi County People’s Government (2007) Pi Xian Renmin Zhengfu Bangongshi Guanyu Yinfa ‘Chuanxi Nongju Fengmao Baohu Jianshe Qu Pi Xian Shifan Dian Jianshe Shishi Fangan’ De Tongzhi [Construction implementation scheme for the Pi County west Sichuan farmhouse character preservation and construction district pilot project]. Available at: http://www.pxfcglj.com/index.php?cid=77&tid=50265&t=2 (accessed 27 November 2017).
RichardsonHL (1945) Szechwan during the war. The Geographical Journal106(1/2): 1–22.
67.
RosenbergL (2013) Urbanising the rural: Local strategies for creating ‘new style’ rural communities in China. China Perspectives3(95): 63–71.
68.
RufGA (1998) Cadres and Kin: Making a Socialist Village in West China, 1921–1991. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
69.
SalterCL (1976) Chinese experiments in urban space: The quest for an agrapolitan China. Habitat International1(1): 19–35.
70.
SchefferMCarpenterSRLentonTM, et al. (2012) Anticipating critical transitions. Science338(6105): 344–348.
71.
ScottM (2013) Resilience: A conceptual lens for rural studies?Geography Compass7(9): 597–610.
72.
ShawN (1914) Chinese Forest Trees and Timber Supply. London and Leipsic: T.F. Unwin.
73.
ShenMShenJ (2018) Governing the countryside through state-led programmes: A case study of Jiangning District in Nanjing, China. Urban Studies55(7): 1439–1459.
74.
Shi Ju Zhi Ku, Anonymous staff of Chengdu agricultural agency, and Li Chuyue (ed.) (2014) Dang Tianfu Zhi Guo Xuyao Jinkou Liangshi, Zhongguo Zenme Ban? [When the land of heavenly abundance must import grain, what is China to do?]. Guancha Zhe [Observer], 5April. Available at: http://www.guancha.cn/ShiJuZhiKu/2014_04_05_219104.shtml (accessed 25 July 2017).
75.
Sichuan Sheng RenDa Nongye yu Nongcun Weiyuan Hui [Sichuan Provincial People’s Congress Committee on Agriculture and Villages] (2011) Chengdu Pingyuan Tudi Baohu Guihua Diaoyan Baogao [Survey report on land preservation planning for the Chengdu Plain]. Available at: http://www.scspc.gov.cn/nyyncwyh/yjybg_679/201502/t20150227_25565.html (accessed 18 October 2017).
76.
SkinnerGW (1977) Cities and the hierarchy of local systems. In: SkinnerGW (ed.) The City in Late Imperial China. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, pp. 275–352.
77.
SmilV (2005) Feeding the world: How much more rice do we need? In: ToriyamaKHeongKLHardyB (eds) Rice Is Life: Scientific Perspectives for the 21st Century: Proceedings of the World Rice Research Conference, Tsukuba, Japan. Manila: International Rice Research Institute (IRRI), pp. 21–23.
78.
SoraceC (2014) China’s vision for developing Sichuan’s post-earthquake countryside: Turning unruly peasants into grateful urban citizens. The China Quarterly218: 404–427.
79.
TaylorPJNiPLiuK (2016) Global Research of Cities: A Case of Chengdu. Singapore, Heidelberg and New York: Springer.
80.
TengöMBelfrageK (2004) Local management practices for dealing with change and uncertainty: A cross-scale comparison of cases in Sweden and Tanzania. Ecology and Society9(3): 4.
81.
TippinsJL (2014) Planning for resilience: A proposed landscape evaluation for redevelopment planning in the linpan landscape. Master’s Thesis, Urban Planning, Seattle, WA: University of Washington.
82.
TracCJHarrellSHinckleyTM, et al. (2007) Reforestation programs in southwest China: Reported success, observed failure, and the reasons why. Journal of Mountain Science4(4): 275–292.
83.
UrgensonLSchmidtAHCombsJ, et al. (2014) Traditional livelihoods, conservation and meadow ecology in Jiuzhaigou National Park, Sichuan, China. Human Ecology42(3): 481–491.
84.
Van ApeldoornDFKokKSonneveldMPW, et al. (2011) Panarchy rules: Rethinking resilience of agroecosystems, evidence from Dutch dairy-farming. Ecology and Society16(1): 39.
85.
Von RichthofenF, Freiherr (n.d.) Baron Richthofen’s Letters, 1870–1872. Shanghai: North China Herald.
86.
WalkerBHSaltD (2006) Resilience Thinking: Sustaining Ecosystems and People in a Changing World. Washington, DC: Island Press.
87.
WangX (2011a) Jianguo Yilai Chengdu Pingyuan Nongtian Guangai Zhidu De Yanbian – Yi Mianzhu Shejiantai Cun Weili [Evolution of irrigation regimes in Chengdu Plain since the foundation of the People’s Republic of China – A study based on Shejiantai Village in Mianzhu City]. Zhongguo Nongshi [Agricultural History of China] 2011(4): 72–83.
88.
WangX (2011b) Tongchou Chengxiang Fazhan Yu Chuangxin Nongcun Tudi Zhidu: Chengdu Shi Nongcun Chanquan Zhidu Gaige Shidian Yanjiu [Coordinated urban–rural development and innovation in village land systems: Reforms in Chengdu municipality’s village property rights system]. Xinan Jiaotong Daxue Xuebao: Shehui Kexue Ban [Southwest Jiaotong University Journal: Social Science Edition] 12(5): 55–60.
89.
WebsterD (2011) An overdue agenda: Systematizing East Asian peri-urban research. Pacific Affairs84(4): 631–642.
90.
WesselinkAWarnerJSyedMA, et al. (2016) Trends in flood risk management in deltas around the world: Are we going ‘soft’?International Journal of Water Governance3(4): 25–46.
91.
WhitingSAbramsonDYuanSHarrellS. (2019) A long view of resilience in the Chengdu Plain, China. Journal of Asian Studies78(2): 257–284.
92.
WhyteMK (2010) One Country, Two Societies: Rural–Urban Inequality in Contemporary China. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
93.
WilczakJ (2017) Making the countryside more like the countryside? Rural planning and metropolitan visions in post-quake Chengdu. Geoforum78: 110–118.
94.
WillmottWE (1989) Dujiangyan: Irrigation and society in Sichuan, China. The Australian Journal of Chinese Affairs22: 143–153.
95.
WilsonEHSargentCS (1913) A Naturalist in Western China, with Vasculum, Camera, and Gun: Being Some Account of Eleven Years’ Travel, Exploration, and Observation in the More Remote Parts of the Flowery Kingdom. London: Methuen and Biodiversity Heritage Library.
96.
WuM (1983) Dujiangyan Gulao Gongcheng De Kexue Jiazhi Ji ‘Gu Wei Jin Yong’ De Juda Xiaoyi [Scientific value of the ancient Dujiangyan project and its great benefit as the past serving the present]. Nongye Kaogu [Agricultural Archaeology] 2: 53–58.
97.
XiaoL (2015) Buying time for the farmers of Chengdu: Settlement form, labor time allocation, and their implications for resilient land use planning in a rapidly urbanizing region. Master’s Thesis, Urban Planning, Seattle, WA: University of Washington.
98.
XiaoY (2014) Making land fly: The institutionalization of China’s land quota markets and its implications for urbanization, property rights, and intergovernmental politics. PhD dissertation, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA.
99.
XuH (2017) Shuju Jieshi De Hu Xian Liangce Bainian Zhongguo Shikong Geju Bianqian [A Hundred Years Later, Data Reveal Changes in China’s Time–Space Structure across the Hu Line]. Paper presented at the “Hu Huanyong Xian” shang de Zhongguo Shikong Geju [China’s Time–Space Structure on the Hu Huanyong Line]. Beijing: Chinese Academy of Urban Planning and Design. Available at: https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/0v_bMuH-BidUUKZq3ofv-A? (accessed 9 April 2019).
100.
XuXWangLCaiH, et al. (2017) The influences of spatiotemporal change of cultivated land on food crop production potential in China. Food Security9(3): 485–495.
101.
YeYLeGatesR (2013) Coordinating Urban and Rural Development in China: Learning from Chengdu. Northampton, MA: Edward Elgar.
102.
YouN (1981) Alternative strategies in urban development: Some Chinese experiments in a quest for agrapolitan space. Third World Planning Review3(1): 77–93.
103.
YuanL (2016) Shengtai Jichusheshi Jianshe Zhong De Diqu Xiezuo: Gudai Dujiangyan Guanqu Shixi Guanzhi De Qishi [Regional collaboration in ecological infrastructure construction: Contemporary inspiration from ancient water system governance in Dujiangyan irrigation area]. Chengshi Guihua [City Planning Review] 40(8): 36–43, 52.
104.
YuanLYuanL (2013) Problems and countermeasures of Dujiangyan agricultural area protection during the rapid urbanization in Chengdu. In: 49th ISOCARP Congress, Frontiers of Planning: Evolving and Declining Models of City Planning. Brisbane, Australia, 1–4 October 2013. International Society of City and Regional Planners.
105.
ZhanS (2017a) Hukou reform and land politics in China: Rise of a tripartite alliance. The China Journal78: 25–49.
106.
ZhanS (2017b) Riding on self-sufficiency: Grain policy and the rise of agrarian capital in China. Journal of Rural Studies54(Supplement C): 151–161.
107.
ZhanSHuangL (2017) Internal spatial fix: China’s geographical solution to food supply and its limits. Geoforum85(Supplement C): 140–152.
108.
ZhangM (2017) Tuidong Chuanxi Nonggeng Wenming De Huigui Yu Shengji: Pidu Qu Nongye Yao ‘Shen Yi’ [Promote the return and upgrade of western Sichuan farming civilization: Pidu District pursues ‘heritage inscription’ for agriculture]. Chengdu Pidu Qu [Chengdu Pidu District]. Available at: http://www.sc.gov.cn/10462/12771/2017/8/28/10431901.shtml (accessed 9 April 2019).
109.
ZhangQFDonaldsonJA (2008) The rise of agrarian capitalism with Chinese characteristics: Agricultural modernization, agribusiness and collective land rights. The China Journal60: 25–47.
110.
ZhangQFWuJ (2017a) Political dynamics in land commodification: Commodifying rural land development rights in Chengdu, China. Geoforum78: 98–109.
111.
ZhangQFWuJ (2017b) Providing rural public services through land commodification: Policy innovations and rural–urban integration in Chengdu. In: JingYOsborneSP (eds) Public Service Innovations in China. Singapore: Springer, pp. 67–91.
112.
ZhangS (2017) Chengdu Jiang Dong Jin, Nan Tuo, Xi Kong, Bei Gai, Zhong You [Chengdu to advance east, extend south, control the west, improve the north, and optimize the center]. Sichuan Ribao [Sichuan Daily]. Available at: http://sc.sina.com.cn/news/b/2017-04-25/detail-ifyepsch3166648.shtml (accessed 29 October 2017).
113.
ZhangSYiYLiuY, et al. (2013) Hydraulic principles of the 2,268-year-old Dujiangyan project in China. Journal of Hydraulic Engineering139(5): 538–546.
