Search Results (73)

The growth of rural residents’ disposable income is essential for narrowing the income gap between urban and rural areas and promoting integrated development. This study explores how China’s National Main Functional Zoning Plan influences rural household income through its regulatory impact on construction land expansion. Using data from county−level administrative units across China, the research identified the construction land regulation index as a key mediating variable linking zoning policy to changes in household income. By shifting the analytical perspective from a traditional urban–rural classification to a framework aligned with the National Main Functional Zoning Plan, the study reveals how spatial planning tools, particularly differentiated land quota allocations, influence household income. The empirical results confirm a structured causal chain in which zoning policy affects land development intensity, which in turn drives rural income growth. This relationship varies across different functional zones. In key development zones, strict land control limits income potential by constraining land supply. In main agricultural production zones, moderate regulatory control enhances land use efficiency and contributes to higher income levels. In key ecological function zones, ecological constraints require diverse approaches to value realization. The investigation contributes both theoretical and practical insights by elucidating the microeconomic effects of national spatial planning policies and offering actionable guidance for optimizing land use regulation to support income growth tailored to regional functions. Full article

Corporate environmental claims often neglect the substantial ecological impact of land-use changes. This case study examines the spatial dimension of retail-driven land-use transformation by analyzing supermarket expansion in the Veneto region (northern Italy), with a focus on a large grocery retailer. We evaluated its corporate environmental claims by assessing land consumption patterns from 1983 to 2024 using Geographic Information Systems (GIS). The GIS-based methodology involved geocoding 113 Points of Sale (POS—individual retail outlets), performing photo-interpretation of historical aerial imagery, and classifying land-cover types prior to construction. We applied spatial metrics such as total converted surface area, land-cover class frequency across eight categories (e.g., agricultural, herbaceous, arboreal), and the average linear distance between afforestation sites and POS developed on previously rural land. Our findings reveal that 65.97% of the total land converted for Points of Sale development occurred in rural areas, primarily agricultural and herbaceous lands. These landscapes play a critical role in supporting urban biodiversity and providing essential ecosystem services, which are increasingly threatened by unchecked land conversion. While the corporate sustainability reports and marketing strategies emphasize afforestation efforts under their “We Love Nature” initiative, our spatial analysis uncovers no evidence of actual land-use conversion. Additionally, reforestation activities are located an average of 40.75 km from converted sites, undermining their role as effective compensatory measures. These findings raise concerns about selective disclosure and greenwashing, driving the need for more comprehensive and transparent corporate sustainability reporting. The study argues for stronger policy frameworks to incentivize urban regeneration over greenfield development and calls for the integration of land-use data into corporate sustainability disclosures. By combining geospatial methods with content analysis, the research offers new insights into the intersection of land use, business practices, and environmental sustainability in climate-vulnerable regions. Full article

With the acceleration of global urbanization, cropland loss and fragmentation due to construction land expansion have become critical threats to food security and ecological sustainability, particularly in rapidly developing coastal regions. Understanding urban–rural differences in these processes is essential as divergent governance policies, socioeconomic pressures, and land use transition pathways may lead to uneven impacts on agricultural systems. However, past comparisons of urban–rural differences regarding this issue have been insufficient. Therefore, this study takes Jiangsu Province, China, as an example. Based on 30 m-resolution land use data, Geographic Information System (GIS) spatial analysis, and landscape pattern indices, it delves into the urban–rural differences in cropland loss and fragmentation caused by construction land expansion from 1990 to 2020. The results show that cropland in urban and rural areas decreased by 44.14% and 5.97%, respectively, while the area of construction land increased by 2.61 times and 90.14%, respectively. 94.36% of the newly added construction land originated from cropland, with the conversion of rural cropland to construction land being particularly prominent in northern Jiangsu, while the conversion of urban cropland to construction land is more pronounced in southern Jiangsu. The expansion of construction land has led to the continuous fragmentation of cropland, which is more severe in urban areas than in rural areas, while construction land is becoming increasingly agglomerated. There are significant differences in the degree of land use change between urban and rural areas, necessitating the formulation of differentiated land management policies to balance economic development with agricultural sustainability. Full article

With the intensification of global climate change, the frequent occurrence of typhoon disaster events has become a great challenge to the sustainable development of cities around the world; thus, it is of great significance to carry out the assessment of typhoon-directed economic losses. Typhoon disaster loss assessment faces key challenges, including complex regional environments, scarce historical data, difficulties in multi-source heterogeneous data fusion, and challenges in quantifying assessment uncertainties. Meanwhile, existing studies often overlook the complex relationship between the spatial expansion of urban and rural construction (SEURC) and typhoon disaster losses, particularly their differential manifestations across different regions and disaster intensities. To address these issues, this study proposes CLPFT (Comprehensive Uncertainty Assessment Framework for Typhoon), an innovative assessment framework integrating prototype learning and uncertainty quantification through a UProtoMLP neural network. Results demonstrate three key findings: (1) By introducing prototype learning, a meta-learning approach, to guide model updates, we achieved precise assessments with small training samples, attaining an MAE of 1.02, representing 58.5–76.1% error reduction compared to conventional machine learning algorithms. This reveals that implicitly classifying typhoon disaster loss types through prototype learning can significantly improve assessment accuracy in data-scarce scenarios. (2) By designing a dual-path uncertainty quantification mechanism, we realized high-reliability risk assessment, with 95.45% of actual loss values falling within predicted confidence intervals (theoretical expectation: 95%). This demonstrates that the dual-path uncertainty quantification mechanism can provide statistically credible risk boundaries for disaster prevention decisions, significantly enhancing the practical utility of assessment results. (3) Further investigation through controlling dynamic assessment factors revealed significant regional heterogeneity in the relationship between SEURC and directed economic losses. Furthermore, the study found that when typhoon intensity reaches a critical value, the relationship shifts from negative to positive correlation. This indicates that typhoon disaster loss assessment should consider the interaction between urban resilience and typhoon intensity, providing important implications for disaster prevention and mitigation decisions. This paper provides a more comprehensive and accurate assessment method for evaluating typhoon disaster-directed economic losses and offers a scientific reference for determining the influencing factors of typhoon-directed economic loss assessments. Full article

As a zone lying adjacent to urban areas, construction land development in suburbs includes urban expansion caused by urbanization and rural construction land increments caused by rural development. Given the necessity of satisfying urban and rural development demands while protecting the ecological environment, goals of land use efficiency, socio-economic coordination, and ecological benefit need to be ensured simultaneously, which indicates that the coordinative development of suburban construction land is of great significance, thereby raising the need for a reasonable evaluation for the coordinative level from multiple dimensions. However, the evaluation of suburban construction land coordination considering spatial, socio-economic, and ecological factors is insufficiently studied. To fill the research gap, this study comprehensively evaluates the coordination of suburban construction land at the town level. Specifically, four indicators from spatial, socio-economic, and ecological dimensions, including landscape pattern, accessibility, socio-economic symbiosis, and ecological functional suitability, are selected. By utilizing coupling coordination degree estimation, the coordination among the four selected indicators is evaluated. By adopting a case study of suburban Wuhan, different coordinative levels regarding suburban construction land development are identified and respondent suggestions to promote the coordination of suburban construction land under current China’s land use policies are provided. This study contributes to understanding the coordinative development of suburban construction land and proposing a method to estimate the coordination. Full article

The excessive occupation of ecological space (ES) due to city expansion and construction can reduce a variety of natural values and socioeconomic benefits, which would also bring challenges associated with ecological rights and justice between urban areas (with economic impetus) and rural areas (with rich ecological endowments). A more sustainable development mode is required to shift population–industry–land (PIL) allocation from urban-led commensalism (ULC) to PIL interaction by urban–rural mutualism (URM). Thus, an urban–rural integration six-step symbiotic framework (UISS) was built to reflect how the change in urban–rural integration symbiotic mode (the ULC to URM transformation process) can ameliorate socioeconomic inequity in ecological space (IES). Moreover, the two-way fixed-effects model and heterogeneity analysis are used to discuss how the improvement of urban–rural integration symbiotic development level (URI) ameliorates the IES under socioeconomic development to reduce the unfairness, differences between regions, and mismatch of gravity centers from the perspective of spatiotemporal and dynamic changes under various symbiotic environments. The comprehensive multi-perspective analysis of IES based on the symbiotic framework (MEU) was applied to reflect the effect of dynamic PIL interaction changes from ULC mode to URM mode on IES in Yunnan Province, China. The results can be obtained as follows: (1) The URI including symbiotic units of PIL shows a steady rise in growth, with a maximum growth rate of 22.89%, which indicates that the URI has changed from the urban-led commensalism development mode to the urban–rural mutualism development mode. (2) The IES in temporal unfairness has been steadily alleviated, but the spatial differences remain obvious due to the unique symbiotic environment. The dynamic changes in the distance of the gravity centers between ES and PO-IN reflect an increasing mismatch in some regions (e.g., Kunming), while decreasing in others (e.g., Qujing). (3) URI generates a significant symbiotic effect on IES to reduce unfairness, differences, and mismatch, especially through the integration of industrial and population symbiotic units. The heterogeneity analysis shows that a good symbiotic environment, including business environment, industrial structure, transportation conditions, and government size, is conducive to ameliorating IES through the environmental adaptability of symbiotic units. All the results can provide a scientific reference for regional sustainable planning and management under mutualistic population–industry–land interaction between urban and rural areas. Full article

Imbalanced supplies and demands of ecosystem services (ESSD) can negatively affect human well-being. Optimizing land use patterns in cities and regions is, in fact, essential to mitigate this challenge and ensure sustainable development. In this context, the present study aims to analyze the supply and demand of food production services (FPs), carbon sequestration services (CSs), and recreation services (RSs) in a typical coal resource-based city (Huainan) in China. In addition, the main influencing factors and their driving mechanisms were further explored using the geographical detector (Geo-Detector) and multi-scale geographic weighted regression (MGWR) models. Future land use changes were also predicted under traditional and constrained development scenarios using the GeoSOS-FLUS model. The obtained results indicated that: (1) the comprehensive ecosystem service (ES) supply index decreased from 1.42 to 0.84, while the comprehensive demand index increased from 0.74 to 0.95 during the 2010–2020 period; (2) the urban and rural areas had spatial disparities; (3) changes in the construction, ecological, and cultivated land strongly impacted ES; (4) implementing constrained development scenarios can effectively protect the ecological land, control urban expansion, and improve the ESSD relationships in Huainan City. This study provides a valuable theoretical foundation and a methodological framework for future urban and land use optimization efforts, as well as for enhancing the sustainability of ecosystem services and mitigating the imbalance between the supplies and demands of ecosystem services. Full article

Urban–rural integration (URI) is essential to achieving sustainable development. However, the rural areas surrounding large cities typically have a large scale and significant differences in development conditions. It is necessary to formulate rural development policies by category to better promote the integrated development between urban and rural areas, stimulate rural vitality, and create more significant opportunities for rural development. This study constructs an evaluation system for rural areas under URI, using the Xi’an metropolitan area as a case study. A clustering algorithm enhanced by the random forest (RF)–principal component analysis (PCA)–partitioning around medoids (PAM) method is applied to evaluate rural integration comprehensively. Key findings in this study include the following: (i) URI should be decoupled from administrative divisions, considering the complex impacts of multi-town functional spillover; (ii) ecological environment, economic development, public service allocation, and construction land supply are key factors influencing URI; (iii) the overall URI index in the Xi’an metropolitan area presents a “high in the center, low in the east and west” pattern. The rural areas with high URI index are around Xi’an and Xianyang, while other cities show insufficient communication with neighboring villages; (iv) rural areas can be categorized into four types of integration: ecological, ecological–economic, ecological–social–spatial, and ecological–economic–social–spatial, which exhibit an outward expansion of layers and extension along the east–west axis in the spatial structure of integration. Finally, differential development policies and suggestions for promoting urban–rural integration are put forward because of the different types of rural villages. This paper provides a framework for formulating rural development policies, significantly deepening urban–rural integration. Full article

The urban–rural fringe, serving as a frontier space and protective barrier for urban–rural factor circulation, is a complex area marked by significant human–land conflicts. Therefore, scientifically identifying and dynamically monitoring the urban–rural fringe is crucial for its integrated development and spatial governance. In this context, this paper constructs an information entropy model using land use data, combined with the central gravitational agglomeration method, to accurately identify the evolution of Harbin’s urban–rural fringe over the past 40 years. The research reveals that Harbin’s urban–rural fringe exhibits a distinct circling pattern, with spatial morphology changes characterized as “low-speed spreading—jumping expansion—internal dissimilarity”, allowing for improved identification of its three types: stable, expanding, and degrading. The study also tracks the scale of the urban–rural fringe in Harbin with three types of stable, expanding, and degrading urban–rural fringe. Drawing on previous research, we visualize the fringe area’s functional spatial positioning, showing its dominant function shifting from a production–ecological composite to a production–life–ecological coordinated function. Concurrently, the study’s findings, alongside Harbin’s socioeconomic development, indicate that the urban–rural fringe’s evolution is driven by economic, policy, and environmental factors. Based on the multi-dimensional research outcomes, we conclude that the evolution of Harbin’s urban–rural fringe can be divided into three stages: a slow gestation period (1980–1990), a rapid development period (1990–2010), and a stable reconstruction phase (2010–2020). In the initial phase, urban and rural development is minimal; during the second phase, the trend of urban expansion is significant, and the urban–rural fringe is rapidly shifted to the city; and in the latter stage, urban and rural elements are stabilized and coordinated, and urban and rural areas are realized to be developed and reconstructed as one. This paper provides a scientific basis for understanding the dynamic evolution of the urban–rural fringe in Harbin City and is an important reference for future territorial spatial planning and development. Full article

Sustainable urban growth is an important issue in urbanization. Existing studies mainly focus on urban growth from the two-dimensional morphology perspective due to limited data. Therefore, this study aimed to construct a framework for estimating long-term time series of building volume by integrating nighttime light data, land use data, and existing building volume data. Indicators of urban horizontal expansion (UHE), urban vertical expansion (UVE), and comprehensive development intensity (CDI) were constructed to describe the spatiotemporal characteristics of the horizontal growth, vertical growth, and comprehensive intensity of the Beijing–Tianjin–Hebei (BTH) urban agglomeration from 2013 to 2023. The UHE and UVE increased from 0.44 and 0.30 to 0.50 and 0.53, respectively, indicating that BTH has simultaneously experienced horizontal growth and vertical growth and the rate of vertical growth was more significant. The UVE in urban areas and suburbs was higher and continuously increasing; in particular, the UVE in the suburbs changed from 0.35 to 0.60, showing the highest rate of increase. The most significant UHE growth was mainly concentrated in rural areas. The spatial pattern of the CDI was stable, showing a declining trend along the urban–suburb–rural gradient, and CDI growth from 2013 to 2023 was mainly concentrated in urban and surrounding areas. In terms of temporal variation, the CDI growth during 2013–2018 was significant, while it slowed after 2018 because economic development had leveled off. Economic scale, UHE, and UVE were the main positive factors. Due to the slowdown of CDI growth and population growth, economic activity intensity, population density, and improvement in the living environment showed a negative impact on CDI change. The results confirm the validity of estimating the multi-dimensional growth of regions using remote sensing data and provide a basis for differentiated spatial growth planning in urban, suburban, and rural areas. Full article

Under China’s rural revitalization strategy, peri-urban villages function as pivotal nodes in urban–rural integration. Existing policy research predominantly emphasizes macro-level land and industrial policies, neglecting their spatial development effects on peri-urban villages. This study addresses the gap by constructing a policy quantification framework and employing a Vector Autoregression (VAR) model to analyze policy impacts on rural spatial development, focusing on peri-urban villages in Dalian’s main districts from 2004 to 2023. The results indicate a fluctuating yet upward trend in policy effectiveness. Initial supply-side policies prioritized infrastructure development, whereas subsequent demand-side policies significantly enhanced living conditions, underscoring the necessity of adaptive policy strategies. The rural revitalization construction index exhibited notable spatial heterogeneity, evolving from clusters near industrial zones to expansion into areas like the Jinzhou District, aligned with urban growth patterns. Granger causality analysis confirmed the strong influence of policy interventions, with the first-order lag VAR model offering reliable predictions of short- and long-term policy effects. Initially, the construction index was entirely self-driven (100%), but its reliance on self-influence waned to 69.8% over time, highlighting a transition toward greater policy-driven development. Full article

The abandonment of cultivated land has profoundly affected the agroecological landscape, national food security, and farmer livelihoods, especially in China. Based on land use change survey data and national geoinformation survey data, this paper identified the distribution of abandoned cultivated land and analyzed the overall characteristics and spatial differentiation patterns of abandoned cultivated land in China. The results showed that: (1) In 2017, the abandoned area of cultivated land in China was approximately 9.10 million hectares, with an overall abandoned rate of approximately 5.57%. (2) The distribution of abandoned land in China had obvious spatial differences, and the trend of the area of abandoned land had an “inverted U” shape from east to west. (3) The pattern of abandonment showed a trend of spreading from a scattered distribution to a concentrated and continuous expansion from the edges of large cities and remote rural areas to the main grain-producing regions of fertile cultivated land. (4) The cultivated land abandonment has a great impact on grain production capacity, and there are differences among provinces. In 2017, China lost 40.89 million tons of grain yield due to cultivated land abandonment, accounting for 6.48% of the total grain yield, and the loss of potential grain yield reached 254.45 million tons. The cultivated land abandonment was driven not only by social effects under the dual structure of urban and rural areas but also by the rational choices of farmers under the overall balance of national policy, cultivated land income, and opportunity cost under the framework of urbanization. In the future, policy tools such as fallowing, land conversion, high farmland construction standards, and subsidies should be used to implement differentiated land use policies and optimize the spatial pattern of cultivated land use. Full article

Despite Guangxi’s unique ecological diversity and its important role in land-based ecological security and conservation, research on the assessment and prediction of its habitat quality under the influences of rapid urbanization and environmental pressures remains limited. This study systematically analyzes the spatial and temporal dynamics of land use and habitat quality in Guangxi from 2000 to 2020 using the PLUS-InVEST model and simulates future scenarios for 2030. These scenarios include the Natural Development (ND) scenario, Urban Development (UD) scenario, and Cropland and Ecological Protection (CE) scenario. The results indicate the following: (1) Over the past two decades, rapid urban and construction land expansions in Guangxi intensified their negative impact on habitat degradation. Additionally, the disproportionate change between rural settlement land and rural population warrants attention. (2) Although ecological restoration measures have played a positive role in mitigating habitat degradation, their effects have been insufficient to counterbalance the negative impacts of construction land expansion, highlighting the need for balanced land use planning and urbanization policies. (3) The expansion of rural residential areas had a greater impact on regional habitat quality degradation than urban and infrastructure expansion. Moderate urbanization may contribute to habitat quality improvement. (4) The CE scenario shows the most significant improvement in habitat quality (an increase of 0.13%), followed by the UD scenario, which alleviates habitat degradation by reducing pressure on rural land. In contrast, the ND scenario predicts further declines in habitat quality. Furthermore, land use planning, restoration measures, and sustainable development policies are key factors influencing habitat quality changes. These findings emphasize the importance of integrating land use strategies with ecological restoration measures to balance economic growth and biodiversity conservation, especially in rapidly urbanizing regions. Full article

Rapid transformations in land use and land cover (LULC) serve as critical drivers influencing the eco-environmental quality in swiftly urbanizing areas. This study aims to assess and analyze the land-use transfer in Nanjing, China from 2003 to 2023 and its effects on ecological environment quality, utilizing the land expansion intensity (E_n), the land use composite index (LUCI), the remote sensing ecological index (RSEI), and other models. The results show that (1) farmland and forestland decreased significantly, with forestland showing the largest decrease (−20.65%), while construction land showed the largest increase (98.70%), mainly from farmland; (2) the overall RSEI level in Nanjing was relatively high, with a slight decline in fluctuation in the past 20 years. The RSEI values of forest land (0.8786) and farmland (0.8318) were higher, while the construction land (0.3790) and unused land (0.3701) were lower; (3) there was significant correlation (p < 0.05) and spatial autocorrelation between land-use changes and RSEI changes. The RSEI of rural areas was better than that of urban centers. There was a significant negative linear correlation between RSEI and LUCI (R² = 0.711), a significant positive correlation with the area proportion of farmland, forest land and water, and a significant negative correlation with the area proportion of construction land. (4) Predictions indicate continued declines in farmland and forestland, accompanied by further expansion of construction areas, and the RSEI will continue to decline. It is suggested that forestland and farmland should be protected in the future, the expansion of construction land should be restrained, urban construction and ecological protection should be balanced, and the sustainable and high-quality development of rapid urbanization areas should be maintained by accurate land-use planning. Full article

A systematic understanding of the spatial-temporal evolution patterns of cultivated land fragmentation (CLF), its driving factors, and its relationship with the expansion of urban and rural construction land is essential for identifying strategies to mitigate CLF in rapidly urbanizing regions. This study combined landscape fragmentation with ownership fragmentation, analyzing CLF through three dimensions: resource endowment, spatial concentration, and convenience of utilization, with eight selected indicators. By comparing village-level data from 2013 to 2022, we explored the key drivers of CLF and its conflicts with urban and rural construction land expansion. The findings indicate a clear spatial variation in village-level CLF in Ezhou, characterized by low fragmentation in the northwest and northeast, and high fragmentation in the southwest and central regions. This pattern is in contrast to Ezhou’s economic development, which decreased progressively from east to north and south. Over the study period, village-level CLF in Ezhou evolved from being primarily moderately and relatively severely fragmented to predominantly severely and relatively severely fragmented, with an overall declining trend and more pronounced polarization. At the same time, the CLF within the village region demonstrated notable spatial clustering features, with a rapid increase observed between 2013 and 2022. It was also discovered that CLF is driven by various factors, with the main influences being the proportion of construction land, land use intensity, and population density. Cultivated land is the main source of both urban construction land (UCL) and rural construction land (RCL), with average contribution rates of 46.47% and 62.62%, respectively. This research offers empirical evidence for rapid urbanization and serves as a critical reference for rural revitalization and coordinated urban–rural development, with potential guidance for future policy formulation and implementation. Full article