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Efficient urban land use plays a crucial role in promoting regional development and ensuring economic growth. Analyzing the spatio–temporal pattern of urban land high-quality use (ULHU) and identifying its key influencing factors and pathways can contribute to enhancing land use efficiency and achieving high-quality development. This study established a comprehensive measurement indicator system for evaluating ULHU using the entropy method and investigated the spatio–temporal evolution pattern of ULHU in the Greater Pearl River Delta (PRD) urban agglomeration in the years 2005, 2010, 2015 and 2020. Furthermore, a multi-period fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis method was adopted to explore the concurrent driving mechanisms that impact ULHU from the configuration perspective. The findings reveal that the level of ULHU has exhibited a significant improvement, increasing from 0.1150 in 2005 to 0.2758 in 2020, with an annual growth rate of 8.739%. The spatial pattern in the PRD region exhibits an incremental distribution, characterized by higher values in the central region and lower values in the peripheral area, as this pattern reveals significant heterogeneity across the region. The configurations for ULHU in the PRD were identified, such as Population-industry-talent driven, Openness-fiscal-talent driven, Population-led, and Population-industry driven. Among these configurations, population density and industrial structure were identified as the core driving factors, while the role of talent resources is gradually diminishing. This study provides practical guidance for promoting the ULHU and optimizing national spatial planning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Local governments in China have decision-making authority over urban land use, and their level of environmental attention influences the green use of urban land. However, the impact of local government environmental attention on urban land green use efficiency and its mechanisms remain unclear. This study utilizes panel data from 284 cities from 2003 to 2020 in China and employs fixed effects models and mediation analysis to investigate the pathways through which local government environmental attention affects urban land green use efficiency. The main results are as follows: (1) Through a series of significance tests, local government environmental attention has a significant positive influence on urban land green use efficiency in cities. (2) Further research suggests that both the quantity and quality of industrial structure upgrading act as intermediaries between local government environmental attention and urban land green use efficiency, while the rationalization of industrial structure plays a partial masking role rather than acting as an intermediary. (3) Furthermore, a regional heterogeneity analysis indicates that the impact of local government environmental attention on urban land green use efficiency is significant in the central region but not in the eastern and western regions. Based on these research findings, this study provides valuable policy insights aimed at contributing to green land use and sustainable development in Chinese cities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The employment inequality between males and females in the context of land expropriation is not conducive for land-expropriated farmers to earn a sustainable livelihood. In this study, based on the data of two waves of household surveys, the "Chinese Family Panel Study" in 2016 and 2018, the PSM-DID method is used to test the effects of land expropriation on the employment behavior of the rural labor force, and the heterogeneous results of men's and women's employment behaviors are analyzed. The following conclusions are drawn. Land expropriation significantly reduces the employment probability of the labor force, encouraging the rural labor force to withdraw from the labor market voluntarily; land expropriation significantly shortens the employment distance of the labor force overall, promoting the urbanization of the rural labor force in the vicinity; land expropriation has a greater impact on the unemployment of the female labor force than that of the male labor force, and it increases the employment distance of males and reduces that of females, promoting the return of females' labor to the family. The policy significance of this study is to attach importance to the long-term sustainable livelihoods of rural households and the employment equality of males and females in urbanization. Findings suggest family–friendly compensation for land expropriation should be formulated, rural construction land should be allowed to enter the market instead of being expropriated, and cooperation between county and developed regions should be encouraged for the creation of more jobs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Modern cities require urban compact development to be sustainable. The evaluation of urban compact development may help create more accurate and realistic policies. The spatio-temporal dynamic evolution of urban compact development efficiency and its regional differences in China are examined in this study. This paper analysis uses 282 cities from 2005 to 2021. The unexpected output super-efficiency SBM model measures urban compact development efficiency. In this study, the urban compact development efficiency's spatial and temporal patterns are also examined using kernel density estimation (KDE) and the Theil index (TI). The average efficiency of urban compact development in China has decreased slightly. However, compact efficiency disparities are decreasing. Eastern cities have a relatively stable compact efficiency, while central and western cities vary more. The compact efficiency polarisation has not changed fundamentally. The compact city growth model's spatial agglomeration is poor, limiting its spatial spillover impact. Thus, compact urban development is necessary to speed up planning, facilitate inter-city production factor movement by creating a comprehensive transport network, and maximise co-location benefits with the regional integration strategy. This method will gradually reduce regional urban development disparities and push Chinese cities towards more refined and sustainable compact development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper establishes an evaluation system based on the low-carbon intensive land use in Jinan city from 2010 to 2017 and uses a multi-attribute approach named grey fuzzy integral to build the evaluation model. In this model, based on the Mobius transformation coefficient of subjective and objective weights of index factors and the interaction degree between index factors, 2-additive fuzzy measures can be obtained; therefore, evaluation of low-carbon and intensive land use in Jinan city is processed by combining the grey correlation degree and Choquet fuzzy integral. The results show that in the study period, land input intensity, land use degree, land output benefit and land sustainability in Jinan city all show a good upward trend, but the low-carbon land use level of has been in a declining state. Although there is a good development trend of low-carbon and intensive land use in Jinan, the state is not stable. A Low-carbon and intensive land use pattern will not be achieved completely overnight, and it is bound to be a dynamic game process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Highway infrastructure construction is regarded as one of the effective policy tools used to promote the flow of production factors and upgrade the industrial structure in China, and it may also be an important precondition to improving Cultivated Land Use Efficiency (CLUE). This paper uses a slack-based model (SBM) based on provincial-level panel data from China from 2004 to 2017 to measure CLUE. Then a dynamic spatial Durbin model and a panel threshold regression model were established to analyze the spatial spillover effect and threshold effect of highway infrastructure construction on CLUE. The results showed that the CLUE of China has a fluctuating but overall rising trend. The dynamic spatial Durbin model demonstrated that the Chinese government's policy of supporting highway infrastructure construction has played an important role in promoting CLUE by spatial spillover effects, and the driving effect of expressways and first–second highways on CLUE is particularly significant in this regard. More interestingly, the results of the panel threshold regression indicated that there is a single threshold effect in the influence of highway infrastructure construction on CLUE. This paper suggested that the spatial correlation between regions should be considered in the construction of regional highway infrastructure and land use planning to improve CLUE. Moreover, the planning of highway infrastructure construction should be balanced according to the actual demand of economic and agricultural development, so as to promote the full flow and reasonable allocation of cultivated land use factors among regions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In view of the differences of land use structure and ecological environment changes caused by land consolidation projects with different features and landforms, this paper uses the modified ecosystem service value estimation model to quantitatively evaluate the change patterns of the ecosystem service value (ESV) of land consolidation, development and arrangement projects in Hubei Province under plains, hills and mountains to provide a theoretical basis for the ecological transformation of land consolidation. The results show that, compared with the pre-land consolidation period, (1) the total amount of ESV in the land consolidation project areas has increased, whereas the land development and arrangement project areas have decreased. Under the same nature, the growth rate of land consolidation project areas is as follows: hills < plains < mountains, and the loss rate of land development and arrangement project areas are as follows: mountains > plains > hills and hills > mountains > plains, respectively. Under the same landform, the total loss rate of ESV in land development project areas is slightly lower than that in land arrangement project areas. (2) The total amount of ESV in the land consolidation project areas under different natures and landforms of the supply service function shows a decreasing trend, and the total amount of ESV of the adjustment service, support service and cultural service function shows an increasing trend in the land consolidation project areas, whereas the land development and arrangement project areas show a decreasing trend. There is an obvious value transformation process of "ecology for production" in the land development and arrangement areas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recessive morphology transition (RMT) involves the smooth transition of farmland property rights, input structure, quality, and function. China's agriculture has changed from a period of high-speed growth to a period of high-quality development. Compared with dominant morphology transition (DMT) characterized by quantitative focus, it is of more practical significance to explore the impact of RMT on high-quality agricultural development (HAD). This paper firstly constructed a multidimensional index system to quantify HAD. Based on analysis of the impact mechanism of RMT on HAD, a spatial econometric model was established to explore the impact by making use of the panel data of 27 provinces in China from 2003–2017. The results indicated that RMT and HAD both have positive geospatial correlation. Furthermore, the spatial econometric model provides more accurate results of the impact of RMT on HAD than panel models. If the RMT in a local province increases by 1%, HAD could be augmented by 0.13%. Likewise, RMT has a strong positive spatial spillover effect on HAD. If the RMT in a certain province increases by 1%, HAD could add 1.22% in neighboring provinces. The analysis suggests that spatial coordination of farmland use is an important foundation for constructing high-quality development association of regional agriculture. It is necessary to strengthen intergovernmental cooperation in the process of farmland recessive morphology transition and high-quality agricultural development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Researching the impact of factor flow on urban land use efficiency (ULUE) is significant in alleviating the contradiction between the accelerated promotion of urbanization and the inefficient use of urban land. This paper theoretically analyzes the impact mechanism of the flow of the three major factors of production—land, capital, and labor—on ULUE. On this basis, taking 54 cities in the urban agglomeration in the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River in China as the research object, the stochastic frontier model, fixed effect model, and K-means clustering method are used to empirically analyze the impact of the flow of labor, capital, and land on ULUE. The heterogeneous effect of factor flow on ULUE in different urbanization stages is also discussed. The results are as follows: (1) Labor flow and capital flow play a significant role in promoting ULUE; land flow plays the opposite role. (2) With the continuous improvement of the level of urbanization, the promotion effect of labor flow first decreases and then increases, while the promotion effect of capital flow continues to decrease, and the inhibitory effect of land flow is significant in the initial stage and expansion stage of urbanization, and the effect increases gradually, but it is not significant in the mature stage. (3) The level of urbanization has an obvious threshold effect on factor flow. There are single thresholds for labor and land flow, and there is a double threshold for capital flow. Research conclusions: we should continue to promote the market-oriented reform of factors, break the institutional shackles which restrict the free flow of factors, implement policies according to the city and the stage, and give full play to the positive impact of factor flow on ULUE. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is of great significance to explore the dynamic coupling relationship between industrial integration and urban land-use efficiency (ULUE) in order to promote high-quality urban development. This paper presents a system for evaluating industrial integration and ULUE which combines the internal theoretical relationships between the two. Based on this system, this paper analyzes the evolution process and the mechanism behind the coupling coordination relationship between industrial integration and ULUE with the help of the coupling coordination model, nonparametric kernel density estimation, and the geographical detector method. The results indicate the following: (1) The coupling coordination relationship between industrial integration and ULUE in the Yangtze River Economic Zone experienced an overall steady increase during the investigation period. However, there were great spatial differences in the coupling coordination relationship among cities. (2) The lag of the industrial integration level was the key area of resistance to the improvement of the coupling coordination level. (3) The interaction between industrial integration and ULUE in the Yangtze River Economic Zone was very significant. In particular, the impact of industrial agglomeration and factor flow on the ULUE and the impact of land on industrial integration in terms of ecological environment were prominent. In addition, the interaction of different detection factors was mainly manifested as a double factor enhancement effect and nonlinear enhancement effect. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Eco-efficiency of arable land utilization (EALU) emphasizes efficient coordination between land use systems and ecosystems. It is therefore of great significance for agricultural sustainability based on the systematic assessment of EALU. This study took carbon emissions and non-point source pollution resulting from arable land utilization into the measurement system of EALU, and a super-SBM model, kernel density estimation and Tobit regression model were used to analyze regional differences and influencing factors of EALU for 31 provinces in China from 2000 to 2019. The results showed that there was an upward trend in EALU in China from 0.4393 in 2000 to 0.8929 in 2019, with an average annual growth rate of 4.01%. At the regional level, the EALU of three categories of grain functional areas generally maintains an increasing trend, with the highest average value of EALU in main grain marketing areas (MGMAs), followed by grain producing and marketing balance areas (GPMBAs) and main grain producing areas (MGPAs). There are obvious differences in EALU among provinces, and the number of provinces with high eco-efficiency has increased significantly, showing a spatial distribution pattern of "block" clustering. In terms of dynamic evolution, kernel density curves reflect the evolution of EALU in China and grain functional areas with different degrees of polarization characteristics. The results of Tobit regression show that natural conditions, financial support for agriculture, science and technology inputs, level of industrialization, agricultural mechanization, and the living standards of farmers are significant factors resulting in regional disparities of EALU. Therefore, this study proposes the implementation of differentiated arable land use/agricultural management strategies to improve the sustainable utilization of arable land. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Understanding land use functions (LUFs) value is critical for implementing sustainable land resources management and optimizing territorial space in China. However, existing research insufficiently portrays the contributions of land use to economic activity and people's well-being. To address this crucial absence, this paper attempts to clarify the connotation of LUFs' value and the logic of LUFs' optimization under the national territorial space planning system by applying the "demand–function–value" integrated framework. Based on this framework and taking Zhangjiakou City as a case study, we classified LUFs into economic, social, and ecological functions. Then, we assessed the monetary value of LUFs at the grid level using spatialization and environmental economics methods. Besides, we analyzed the evolutionary characteristics of LUFs and their diversity and dominance. The results showed that the total value of economic, social, and ecological LUFs increased continuously between 1990 and 2015. Spatially, the ecological function showed an opposite pattern to that of social and economic functions. Additionally, the dominant role shifted from ecological function to social function, and the dominant functional combination changed from ELP-ENS-ST to SP-ENS-ELT over this period. Lastly, this paper proposes that policymakers identify and optimize ecological–production–living space through LUFs' value assessment and coordination. The results provide a new methodological insight into the assessment and coordination of LUFs and adaptive land use management. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the expansion of the global transnational agricultural planting scale, research on transnational agricultural land investment is growing. In order to analyze the development context and basic characteristics of this research, and to discover the research hotspots and frontiers, this study used documentation and bibliometric methods to examine the achievements of it. The results show the following: (1) Transnational agricultural land investment research is mainly focused on the social sciences, development studies, economics, environmental sciences and geography. (2) The concentration of researchers in this research field is not high, and there is still a lack of authoritative researchers with high influence. The cooperation network has been initially formed between research institutions. Among them, universities and research institutes are the main institutions of transnational agricultural land investment research, but the degree of integration among the research teams is not high. (3) The evolution of the research theme of the field has experienced three stages—an embryonic stage, growth stage and stable stage—and the research content shows a trend of continuous divergence and deepening. (4) From 2005 to 2019, the research hotspots of the research focused on "Land Grabbing, Global Land, Africa, Investment". At present, the emerging frontier research topics are "Indonesia, Livelihood, Trajectory and Sustainability". With many years of development, the research has become an obvious "land" attribute, independent from traditional agricultural economic research, and the research topics are becoming more and more mature, refined and diversified. Transnational agricultural land investment research is attracting continuous attention from scholars in multiple disciplines and fields. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]