BEIJING - The central government will face increasing pressure to protect land this year, especially since cases of illegal land use are likely to become more common as regional governments continue to rely on construction projects as the chief means of ensuring the prosperity of their local economies, the country's land watchdog said.

Slightly more than 9,830 cases of illegal land use, affecting 4,891 hectares, occurred from January to March, a number that was 3.7 percent higher than it had been in the same period the year before, Li Jianqin, director of the law enforcement and supervision department of the Ministry of Land and Resources, said at a press conference on Monday.

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Of the land used illegally, 1,742 hectares of it consisted of arable land, up 2.5 percent from what the number had been from January to March 2010, Li said.

"The increasing number of cases is mainly a result of local governments' desire to encourage construction projects in the hope of showing good progress in 2011, the first year of the country's 12th Five-Year Plan (2011-2015) period," he said.

According to the ministry's statement, illegal land-use cases happened more frequently in provinces and cities in central and western China - regions where urbanization is occurring quickly.

In the first quarter of the year, 2,881 hectares were used illegally in central and western China, accounting for 59 percent of all land in China then being used illegally, according to the ministry's statistics.

Li said local governments have had a hand in more and more instances of illegal land use in recent years, planting the seeds of distrust in the public.

As a result, the central government will come under more pressure to protect land in the second quarter - which is also a time when many local construction projects tend to occur, he said.

Detecting illegal land use is one of the ministry's top priorities, he added. And it has had plenty to keep it occupied.

From June 2007 to July 2008, local governments in Hexian county, East China's Anhui province, illegally seized 412 hectares. By August 2009, 203 of those hectares had been transferred to local companies seeking to use them as the sites of golf courses, hotels and similar attractions.

In April 2009, the Shaanxi Yangshanzhuang Cement Co Ltd in Northwest China's Shaanxi province was fined 1.8 million yuan ($276,000) for building illegally on a 18.3-hectare piece of land.

In November 2009, the Sihe Industrial and Trade Co Ltd in Long'an county, South China's Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region, was subjected to an administrative penalty for illegally building on a 10.4-hectare section of land, which has since been reclaimed.

And in April last year, 13 enterprises in Taiqian county, Central China's Henan province, were fined 7.77 million yuan for illegally building on a 32.8-hectare piece of land.

So far, 19 local officials involved in the cases have suffered disciplinary punishments, according to the statement of the Ministry of Land and Resources.

Since 2008, the ministry has told provincial authorities in charge of places with severe cases of illegal land use that it will meet with them in person to talk about how they might strengthen their attempts at protection.

Analysts meanwhile said the central government should make adjustments every year to its goals guiding local land use.

"Local governments now undertake urban planning on their own," said Li Chang'an, a public policy professor at the Beijing-based University of International Business and Economics. "Their land needs thus don't always agree with the land-use goals set by the central government."

According to a survey conducted by the ministry early this year, regional governments around the country plan to set aside 1.08 million hectares of land for the construction of roads, rails and similar projects in 2011.

That number greatly exceeds the 448,900 hectares the State Council has said can be put to such purposes.