Search

With the rapid development of social economy and urban−rural integration, the phenomenon of farmland abandonment worldwide has proved to be one of the main trends of land use and land cover change (LUCC), and profoundly affected the rural landscape and regional ecological environment. Restricted by the natural environment, economic development and backward agricultural technology, the phenomenon of farmland abandonment is also common in the Qingzang Plateau (QP). Therefore, this paper adopted the spatial autocorrelation method to analyze the spatial pattern of abandonment in the agricultural and pastoral areas of the Qingzang Plateau (APA−QP) in 2017, and the geographically weighted regression (GWR) model to explore the effects of geographical resources, socio-economic development and location conditions on farmland abandonment. This study found that: 1) From 2015 to 2017, the abandoned farmland area in the APA−QP was approximately 18.23 × 104 ha, with an overall abandonment rate of 15.18%. On the whole, it showed the distribution characteristics of “strong in the south and weak in the north, strong in the east and weak in the west”. 2) There were positive spatial correlation between both abandoned area and abandonment rate in the APA−QP, showing “concave” and “convex” patterns, respectively, mainly concentrated in the Huang−shui Valley and the Southeast Tibet; while in the western and northern regions, the degree of abandonment was relatively low. 3) Farmland abandonment in the APA−QP was mainly driven by the geographical environment changes and farmers’ decision−making on farmland utilization. There was significant spatial heterogeneity on farmland abandonment associated with the impact of geographical resources, socio−economics and location conditions. The geographical resource factors had a positive impact on the abandonment, and were strongly constrained by natural geographic conditions such as altitude and slope. The farmland resources in the Qingzang Plateau are limited, but are of strategic significance for the sustainable development of agriculture in the whole Qingzang Plateau. In order to realize the rational distribution of agriculture and animal husbandry and the sustainable utilization of farmland resources in the plateau region, land use strategies should be implemented according to regional differences and regional advantages in order to ensure the ecological environment security of Qingzang Plateau.

A new concept model of “transferring area-undertaking area-dynamic process” is proposed to promote coordinated industrial development and the optimal utilization of regional resources. This model includes three parts: the identification of the industrial transfer trend in the transferring area through a competitive advantage analysis, a comprehensive evaluation of the undertaking ability in the undertaking area, and the detection of the spatial dynamics of industries to measure the implementation of regional industrial transfer and the matching situation between the acceptance ability of the undertaking area and transferred industries. Taking the Jingjinji urban agglomeration in China as a case study, the analysis reveals that in Beijing, industrial transfer was an inevitable tendency because most traditional industries lacked competitiveness. The comprehensive ability and single factor advantage of undertaking industrial transfer differed regionally in Tianjin-Hebei; generally, the undertaking ability of the central-south plains was higher than that of the northwest mountains area. From the perspective of industrial land supply, the land for each industrial sector had shrunk in Beijing, while the expansion was concentrated in plain areas in Tianjin-Hebei with a pattern of “big agglomeration-small dispersion”, thereby implying that the industries in the transferring area were apparently transferred to the undertaking area. However, some core areas of the south central plain with significant comprehensive and single undertaking ability did not provide corresponding land, which indicated that there was a mismatch between the acceptance ability in the undertaking area and the transferred industries to some extent, and the industrial land supply generated a disordered industrial spatial structure. This research further recommends that a new mechanism of “market regulation-government promotion-enterprise domination-other connection” should be introduced to ensure the operation of the industry transfer with planning, quality, and differences to realize the mutual supplement with each area's advantages and the optimal allocation and utilization of regional resources.

Urbanization has altered landscape patterns and ecological functions, which has caused a decline in ecosystem services (ESS) and resulted in many ecological and environmental issues, particularly in areas that are undergoing rapid urbanization. A better understanding of the relationship between urbanization and ESS is important for future regional sustainability and relevant policy development. Most previous studies focus on the interrelationship between urbanization and environment or refer to the effects of urbanization on ESS. The purpose of this study is to assess the relationship between urbanization and ESS in the Jingjinji (JJJ) urban agglomeration in northern China. The results revealed that with the rapid urbanization trend during the period 1996–2014, the value of ESS in the JJJ region increased by 4.63% because the increases in the forest, orchard and water areas greatly offset the decrease in ESS caused by urban sprawl, and both urbanization and ESS showed marked spatial variability. The temporal relationship between urbanization and ESS was represented by an inverse U-shaped curve; the peak was 0.7 for the urbanization index in 2009. Noticeably, there was no unanimous variation in the value of different ecosystem services types, and food production and waste treatment showed dramatic declines. There were negative spatial correlations between different levels of urbanization and ESS and particularly significant negative correlations among land, population urbanization and ESS. The central cities focused more on urbanization development than on ecological protection, whereas the Bashang Plateau and areas in the northern mountains featured unbalanced development and low levels of urbanization, and both the urbanization level and the ecosystem services value were low in the central southern plains. This indicated that, to realize urban ecological sustainability and develop sustainable regional paradigms, it is possible to strengthen socioeconomic urbanization while at the same time controlling the amount and distribution of land and population. The integration plan and action should be put forward to facilitate all measures taken in JJJ urban agglomeration planning and ecological conservation.

Pollution-intensive industries (PIIs) promote regional economic development but also generate environmental pressure; thus, the relocation of such industries has been a popular research issue. PIIs have been usually studied as a whole in previous studies, ignoring the differences among different pollution types. This study attempts to characterize the spatial and temporal characteristics of PIIs in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region, which is a world-class megalopolis. This region has water pollution, air pollution, solid pollution and composite pollution types based on newly expanded industrial land use data from 2007 to 2016. The results are as follows. (1) The spatial distribution of newly expanded land for the PIIs was mainly concentrated in the southeastern part of the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region, first increased and then decreased during the study period. (2) Different PII pollution types exhibited different quantitative and spatial characteristics. Overall, water and composite pollution-intensive industries dominated, in which the air and composite pollution-intensive industries are large in size and are relatively non-concentrated in their location; the newly expanded land for water pollution-intensive industries was characterized as small in size, scattered, and numerous. The aggregation characteristics of solid pollution-intensive industries had the least amount of newly expanded land and the smallest spatial aggregation range, with a trend towards further reductions or even their disappearance in the future. (3) Hebei has become the bearer of incoming PIIs that have relocated from Beijing and Tianjin. The main polluting industry types that are present in different regions display differences. Industrial park clustering will be the mainstream direction of industrial management in the future. Under the constraints of water scarcity in North China, water pollution-intensive industries are the key to future optimization of spatial development patterns and environmental management, providing a theoretical basis for industries to implement corresponding classification and management work.

Cultivated land productivity potential improvement (CLPPI) assessment is the fundamental basis to launch land consolidation, which is one of the most important way to increase the grain productive capacity. Previous studies on CLPPI assessment have focused on factors related to natural conditions of cultivated land, but they ignored the impacts of utilization conditions, including plot characteristics and agricultural infrastructure, which account for substantial CLPPI from land consolidation. Based on the crop-growth model and Agro-ecological Zoning (AEZ) methodology, this paper proposed a modified CLPPI assessment model to estimate the improvement of land productivity potential via land consolidation. Meanwhile, the contribute rates of different factors involved in determining the CLPPI were also analysed to reveal the ideal work focus and policy direction for land consolidation. Results showed that the calculated CLPPI values had obvious spatial variety in Shenyang, of which the average was 326.18. For the consolidation case, total crop production in Shenyang could be increased by as much as 149.89 × 107 kg, 20% of the current yield. CLPPI is the comprehensive outcome of both natural and utilization qualities of land use, and the current productivity potential of cultivated land in Shenyang relied much less on natural conditions such as soil than on utilization conditions such as agricultural infrastructure. In addition, medium-productivity lands were most appropriate target areas for the implication of land consolidation projects. Actually, the arrangement of land consolidation projects should not only consider CLPPI as in the past, but also add the theoretical productivity potential into consideration. Moreover, the realization of estimated CLPPI also calls for active changes of the whole land management system. An integrated institution for the full implementation of land consolidation, proper regulations and laws on the follow-up protection of cultivated land productivity potential, economic policies to stimulate the willingness of farmers, and a transfer mechanism for cultivated land are all needed policy changes.

Given China’s rapid urbanization, the continual adjustment of industrial land admittance indicators (ILAIs) to promote the optimal allocation and utilization of industrial land is critical for urban land use optimization and sustainable urban development. Unlike previous studies that have focused on qualitative analysis and traditional economic and statistical methods to modify ILAIs via sample survey data, this paper proposes a new theoretical framework for determining the optimal regulation of ILAIs to improve land use efficiency from a quality management perspective, analyses the differences in ILAIs in industrial space and types at multiple scales and sets and modifies the diverse function values of ILAIs by sub-region and sub-industrial sector via a probability model based on big data for 2007–2016 for the Beijing−Tianjin−Hebei (BTH) region. The findings were as follows: (1) The floor area ratio (FAR), greening ratio (GR), building density (BD) and fixed asset investment intensity (FAII) of industrial land in BTH were found to be low within national standards and exhibited great excavation potential. (2) The ILAIs exhibited spatial heterogeneity, with a significant multicore circular structure of peaks and fluctuations and with FAR, BD and FAII values higher in the Jing-Jin region and in the southern and northeastern regions of Hebei Province but lower in northwestern BTH, while the GR’s spatial pattern showed the opposite trend. (3) Both the five classified sub-regions and industry sub-types displayed marked variations in ILAIs, indicating that it was necessary to modify ILAIs by sub-region and sub-industrial sector. (4) Industrial land use efficiency in BTH was further revealed at the general, non-intensive and extensive levels and was found to vary considerable by sub-type. The land use mode of the service industry was the most efficient and intensive, followed by that of the high-tech industry. The land intensiveness of various light industry sectors was clearly distinct, while the chemical, metallurgy and equipment manufacturing industries were of moderate to non-intensive levels. The lowest values were found for the mining and coking industry. (5) The probability model is suggested to be an effective method for modifying the multifunctional values of ILAIs. Relative to national standards, the improved control values of ILAIs were higher at the regional level, and for different sub-regions not fully proportional to their development levels, they were higher or lower than their regional counterparts, even deviating from national standards. The revised FAR of each industry was also found to be higher and directly proportional to existing national standards; however, their improvement exhibited the opposite trend. ILAIs performance was bifurcated in terms of industry sub-types and economic-geographic regions. This study suggests establishing twofold ILAIs of “land use efficiency and industrial development”, developing gradient path guidance for ILAIs threshold values and enhancing ILAIs implementation flexibility to realize the precise matching of industry transfer and acceptance and the coordinated and balanced development of the entire region and constructing a sound “access-adjustment-exit” circulation system for applying ILAIs throughout the life cycle of industrial land.

Whereas the exploration of urban expansion only from the horizontal perspective cannot accurately reflect the real situation, vertical expansion studies can fully understand the characteristics and rules for urban expansion. Understanding how the urban built-up density based on the vertical expansion differs across cities and varies among regions over time is important for enriching the research on urban expansion, as such work can provide theoretical support for the sustainable use of urban land and urban sustainability. This research uses the floor area ratio (FAR) of newly residential land in 320 prefecture-level cities in China from 2007 to 2016 as an urban residential built-up density index to explore the spatiotemporal characteristics, regional differences and influencing factors of vertical urban expansion. The conclusions are as follows: the FAR of urban residential land was 2.42 in 2016, and the urban residential built-up density was increasing. The spatial pattern of the urban residential built-up density in China is an inverted U-shape in the longitudinal direction and decreases from north to south in the latitudinal direction. This density roughly follows the pattern of Central China > West China > East China > Northeast China with remarkable regional differences, and the trend of spatial agglomeration is strengthening. At the national level, the urban residential built-up density is significantly positively correlated with the local government’s motives, the residential developer’s intensions and the consumption capacity of residents, and there is a significant inverse U-shaped relationship between the average wage and the FAR. Finally, the findings indicate that we should grasp the urban expansion characteristics from both horizontal and vertical expansion. The government should take the construction of a livable and resilient city as the goal in land supply and urban planning. In addition, the government should formulate reasonable land supply policies and urban development layouts to promote sustainable urban land use as well as the healthy development of cities in the future.

Water reallocation from the agricultural sector to the ecological sector is an effective way to protect and improve the ecological environment and promote sustainable development in inland river basins. The concept of ecological compensation provides us with a key approach to coordinating economic development and ecological construction. However, most existing studies have paid insufficient attention to the ecological compensation mechanism for the cross-sector transfer of water resources. Taking the Heihe River Basin in northwestern China as a case, the object of this study is to evaluate farmers’ willingness to accept compensation (WTA) for transferring saved irrigation water to the local ecological sector on the basis of distinguishing regions and crops and to determine whether it is reasonable to take it as the ecological compensation standard. Based on the pre-investigation and double-bounded dichotomous contingent valuation model, the number of questionnaires is allocated according to the differences in the number of households in different villages, and face-to-face interviews are conducted by random sampling, The results show that the minimum farmers’ WTA for transferring seed maize, maize, and seed watermelon saved irrigation water to the local ecological sector are 0.53 RMB per m³, 0.24 RMB per m³ and 2.09 RMB per m³, respectively, and they are between the shadow price of agricultural water use in typical irrigation zones and the value of water resource ecological services This indicates not only that the evaluation of farmers' WTA can promote the coordinated development of economy–society–ecology but also that differentiated ecological compensation standards are needed on the edge of the oasis in the Heihe River Basin. If the compensation period is ten years, the total cost of this ecological compensation project is approximately 469 million RMB. In addition, the study also reveals that the start-up bid, irrigation cost, cultivated land area, proportion of agricultural labour and compensation policies variables have a positive impact on farmers’ WTA, whereas the proportion of agricultural income and the impact of land desertification and salinization, ecological wetland degradation and wind-sand weather on production and life variables have a negative effect. Furthermore, the findings indicate that cash, agricultural subsidies and in-kind subsidies are the most acceptable compensation modes.

The inner structure of urban built-up land sprawl (UBLS) is crucial for the level and quality of urbanization. This paper attempts an in-depth analysis of the inner structure of UBLS based on site data of granted built-up land parcels within the Beijing Metropolitan Area from 2001 to 2012. Structure entropy analysis and kernel density estimation (KDE) are employed to characterize the spatial-temporal variation of different types of UBLS and to summarize their patterns. The results reveal that during the sprawl process, residential land expanded rapidly in the first half of the study period while industrial land expanded rapidly in the second half. Residential land sprawl illustrated “radial sprawl”, with a trend of “living suburbanization”; commercial land tended to follow the pattern of “ribbon sprawl along the main roads”; and industrial land sprawl was scattered in a “leapfrog sprawl” pattern. These results reveal the particular characteristics of the coexistence of market mechanisms and government macro-control of the land market in China. The land analysed in this study does not present the high-efficiency circle-layer land-use structure. Driven by top-down power allocations and the GDP-dominated views of local governments, the land supply inclined toward structural imbalance, which generated a disordered urban spatial structure. Hence, we suggest formulating a market-driven land supply mechanism to adjust the land-use supply structure, which has important implications for optimizing urban land-use structure.

Ecosystem services (ESS) change and its response to human activities is critical for enhancing ecosystem management and regional sustainability. This study constructs a theoretical framework of coupled ESS and three modernization (agricultural modernization (AM), industrialization and urbanization) systems, depicts the dynamic changes of ESS and three modernizations in the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau (QTP) from 2000 to 2018, and further analyses the heterogeneity in the response of multiple ESS to different human activities using the Pearson correlation method and bivariate spatial autocorrelation model. (1) AM showed a significant negative impact on ESS and other single ESS except for food production and waste treatment services, and there was also an increasingly significant negative correlation between them in space, indicating that AM did not coordinate the local ecological protection and exerted the strongest destruction and an expanding scope of spatially negative effects on ESS. (2) Industrialization was negatively correlated with ESS as well as all of their associated single ESS to a different extent and was only significantly correlated with regulation services, while it interacted spatially with ESS, changing from presenting a weak negative correlation to presenting a weak positive correlation during 2000–2018, which reveals that industrialization had relatively less pressure on ESS and developed in a more eco-friendly mode. (3) Urbanization exerted a weak negative influence on ESS and most single ESS, whereas urbanization was positively correlated with waste treatment, landscape culture provision and biodiversity maintenance services in 2018, and it showed a significant positive impact of a growing tendency to effect ESS in space, which reveals that urbanization was conducive to reducing the overall disturbance of human activities on ESS. (4) The heterogeneity characteristics of the local spatial correlation patterns between the three modernization levels and ESS as well as their changes during 2000–2018 were investigated and presented obvious differences, and the low-high/high-low areas of the levels and changes for these two constructs should be given enough attention and take corresponding adaptive management measures. This study indicates that there are remarkable heterogeneous effects of different intensities and types of human activities on ESS, which should be understood systematically to coordinate the development pathways and patterns of three modernizations and the restoration and sustainable utilization of ecosystems.

Cultivated land multifunction, defined as the private and public goods and services provided by the land uses, is usually developed based on the interaction between the cultivated land system and human activities, which can satisfy human demand. Additionally, functional products can be depicted as the visible and quantitative outcomes of cultivated land multifunction. This paper assessed the cultivated land multifunction by applying the "influencing factors-functions-products-demands" integrated framework. In the assessment of the cultivated land multifunction from the product perspective at the multilevel, various results have been drawn, which refer to: there are five categories of functions, i.e., production function, economic function, ecological function, social security function, and cultural landscape function. Moreover, the unbalanced development patterns of each function caused the spatial differentiation of cultivated land multifunction at the multilevel, that is, along with the more inferior and complex physical geography and economic location comes the decline trend of multifunction intensity. Normally, in the plain areas, the multifunction has been fully realized because of the high-quality and relative abundance of cultivated land resources, whereas the small-scale and fragmentation of land parcels, as well as the environmental degradation, have restricted the multifunctionality, especially for production and ecological functions. To cope with this, strategies based on cultivated land multifunction management (including functional enhancement and functional conversion) should be adopted by planners and policy-makers in these areas. The findings of our paper may contribute to appropriate policy-making for cultivated land consolidation, as well as be an effective tool to achieve land use multifunctionality and rural sustainable development.

Coordinating urbanization and ecosystem conservation is necessary for future regional sustainability. Understanding the coupling relationship between urbanization and ecosystem conservation has great significance in ecological management and policy making. Based on a comprehensive index system of urbanization and ecosystem services (ESS), this study used the coupling coordination degree (CCD) model and spatial autocorrelation statistical model to evaluate the spatio-temporal coupling interactions of urbanization and ESS in the Jingjinji (JJJ) region at multiple scales from 1996 to 2014, aiming to coordinate development and strengthen regional sustainability. The results showed that although the JJJ region underwent accelerated urban sprawl and urbanization in 1996–2014, the growth of areas such as forests, orchards and water bodies contributed to an overall 4.63% increase in the ecosystem services value (ESV). The dynamic evolution between these two constructs displayed an inverse U-shaped curve and exhibited various characteristics at different development stages and research scales. The urbanization level and the associated changes impacted the natural ecosystems and ESS differently, causing regional differences in ESV per unit area and structural shifts in the ecosystem. During 1996–2014, the CCD between urbanization and ESS in the whole region fluctuated upward, moving from the medium–low stage to the medium–high stage and undergoing a transition from lagging urbanization to lagging ESS. The CCD varied greatly among regions: the spatial similarity between the CCD at the county scale showed that the northern part of the JJJ region presented high-high clusters, while the low-low accumulation areas were mainly distributed in the central southern plain. The overall development trend was good except for the decrease in CCD in some southern counties. The analytical results suggested that the processes that couple urbanization with ecosystems and ESS should be controlled through new urbanization planning, increased sustainable ecological network management, and mutually beneficial cooperation across administrative borders to sustain regional development.

Along with the accelerating process of industrialization and urbanization, water reallocation from agriculture to industry will be an inevitable trend in most developing countries. In the inland river basin, inter-sectoral water transfer is likely to result in reallocation of water resources between upstream and downstream regions, and further triggers frictions and conflicts between regions. Designing effective policy measures to coordinate these conflicts among stakeholders is crucial for the successful implementation of water reallocation. This study established a participatory multi-attribute decision support model to seek a widely acceptable water allocation alternative in the Heihe River Basin, an arid region in Northwest China. The results indicate that: (1) intense conflicts arise not only among stakeholder groups but also between upstream and downstream regions in the process of water reallocation from agriculture to industry; (2) among the options which respectively emphasize on equity, efficiency, and sustainability, the combination of equity and efficiency is the least controversial alternative for the majority of stakeholder groups, although it is not the most desirable one in the performance of all sub-objectives; (3) the multi-attribute value theory (MAVT) approach is a useful technique to elicit stakeholder values and to evaluate water reallocation options. The technique can improve the transparency and credibility of decision making in the water management process.

Urban idle land is a manifestation of urban system degradation in the process of rapid urbanisation. Scientifically and effectively identifying its multidimensional morphology and regional distribution rules is not only the core content of future urban sustainable development research but is also practically needed to carry out urban renewal and urban land renovation. From the ‘space–society–time’ perspective, this study constructed a theoretical framework for urban idle land research and used ‘3S’ (RS, GPS, and GIS) spatial analysis technology, sample surveys, extensive correspondence, and other methods to obtain the spatial locations and basic attributes of 12,966 urban idle land plots in Shandong Province, China. Then, this study quantitatively determined the stage, subject, and spatial heterogeneity of urban idle land and analysed its spatial differentiation characteristics and formation mechanism using a spatial quantitative analysis. The results showed that the total area of urban idle land in Shandong Province is vast, the plot area has the characteristic of outlier ‘fat tails’ at the small scale, and the proportion of idle land is approximately 85 %. The types of urban idle land are dominated by the AIL type (idle land approved but not supplied) with a dense spatial distribution, which is highly related to the level of regional urbanisation and economic development. The behavioural subject of urban idle land mainly concerns the balance between government departments and land use units, which has obvious periodic differences. The AIL type is greatly influenced by the government’s behaviour, while the SIL type (idle land supplied but unused) is greatly affected by the land use units. Moran’s I index of the types of urban idle land exceeds 0.5, and there is a significant low-value agglomeration state between different county administrative regions, with ‘one core and two zones’ characterising the hotspots and cold spots throughout the area. The spatial differentiation of urban idle land results from the positive or negative response to land use behaviours for the interests given by government departments and land use units on different scales of urban interior space. Moreover, the differentiation is influenced by the restriction or promotion of urban external environmental factors, with different degrees of influence. In general, a greater advantage of the urban internal system elements results in the weaker constraint of the external system control elements. Moreover, when the interests of the government departments and land use units tend to reverse, the urban idle land scale tends to be large, and vice versa.

The spatial equilibrium of factor allocation (SEFA) directly affects the utilization efficiency of resources and sustainable regional development. This paper constructs a description and benefits evaluation model of SEFA, and further analyse the spatio-temporal evolution of SEFA and its benefits. Subsequently, the spatial correlation of SEFA and its comprehensive benefits is discussed to reveal how SEFA affects the benefits of regional development, taking the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region as study area. The main findings are as follows: with the increase of input factors, the comprehensive benefits are improved significantly, while the level of SEFA experienced a process of first increase and then decline due to the pressure on natural resources carrying capacity. SEFA is positively correlated with social benefits and economic benefits, but shows no significant correlation with ecological benefits. High level of SEFA could reflect high socio-economic benefits, while it may not necessarily bring about high benefits to regional development. To realize the healthy and benign development of region, balanced development is not the only optimal way, the government could implement the synergetic development strategy to formulate differentiated policies according to regional functions, natural resources carrying capacity and socio-economic characteristics, so as to achieve mutual benefit and win-win results among regions.