Abstract: To reveal the spatiotemporal variations of the driving factors of agricultural land reduction hotspots (ALRHs), the dynamic changes of agricultural land in Wuxi City in 1995-2010 and related driving mechanisms were studied by using multitemporal Landsat TM data, neighborhood analysis, and Logistic regression model. From 1995 to 2010, the agricultural land area in the study region decreased persistently, and the ALRHs were mainly distributed in major cities and towns, with the spatial pattern of the ALRHs being characterized by three distinct transitional phases, i.e., scattered distribution (1995-2001), relatively concentrated distribution (2001-2005), and more decentralized distribution (2005-2010). Accessibility factors presented highly consistent effects on the ALRHs across the study period. The reduction rate of agricultural land was enhanced with increasing accessibility. Socioeconomic factors had strong effects on the ALRHs, but their correlations with the ALRHs showed apparent spatial and temporal variations. In contrast, physical factors such as topography had relatively weak effects on the ALRHs, but their effects were relatively significant across different landscape locations and study periods. Overall, the primary driving forces of the ALRHs in Wuxi region changed from physical and geographical factors (e.g., accessibility and topography) to socioeconomic factors (e.g., industrial productivity and per capita income). Along with landscape ontogenesis, socioeconomic factors played an increasingly important role in the agricultural land change.

Key words: light response model, Nelumbo nucifera, shading, net photosynthetic rate, light response parameter.