Identifying land reuse suitability and transformation strategies towards green development in a post-mining area: A case of Qijiang, Chongqing, China.

• The direction of land reuse can be well connected with China's territorial spatial planning. • Five directions for transformation towards green development are proposed in a post-mining area. • This research provides a new case study for land reclamation in karst mountainous mining areas. • When selecting indexes for land reuse, greater attention is paid to future human activities. In the context of China's high-quality green development, the elimination of backward production capacity presents ecological, social, and economic challenges in mining areas. This study focuses on the southern four towns of Qijiang, representing a former coal mining region in the southwestern mountainous area of China. Our objective is to identify reliable parameters for assessing the suitability of land reuse for agricultural, ecological and construction purposes, aiming to propose a viable approach for green transformation and development. To address this, we established an evaluation indicator system employing the Pressure-State-Response (PSR) model. Additionally, the Projection Pursuit (PP) model, enhanced by the Sparrow Search Algorithm (SSA), was introduced to measure land reuse suitability. A framework based on a three-dimensional cube was utilized to identify the most suitable future land reuse, and the hotspot analysis method was employed to identify spatial clustering. The results indicated that agricultural and ecological land exhibit high suitability, contrasting with relatively lower suitability for construction land in the study area. Specifically, regions suitable for agricultural land spanned 321.73 km2, concentrated in Ganshui, Anwen, and Shihao Towns. Ecologically suitable areas covered 139.47 km2, centered in the central part of Anwen Town and the western part of Datong Town. Construction land suitability was mainly observed in Datong Town, covering 66.84 km2. Based on these findings, development strategies for future land reuse to facilitate green transformation were further discussed in this study. The research outcomes provided essential support for decision-making regarding future land reuse strategies in post-mining areas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]