Spatial-Temporal Characteristics of Cultivated Land Use Efficiency in Major Function-Oriented Zones: A Case Study of Zhejiang Province, China

Abstract

Promoting cultivated land use efficiency (CLUE) coordinated development in various major function-oriented zones is a measure to deal with unbalanced development of territorial space in China. Taking the optimized development, key development, agricultural production, ecological function, and ecological economic zones of Zhejiang province as research objects, this study incorporated agricultural carbon emission into the measurement framework of CLUE and analyzed the regional disparity and the convergence of CLUE from 2008 to 2017, using slack-based measure model (SBM), the Theil index, and convergence theory. The main results are as follows: (1) The CLUE value that considered agricultural carbon emissions was lower than the CLUE value that did not consider agricultural carbon emissions; thus, agricultural carbon emissions had a negative effect on CLUE. (2) The CLUE value of the five major function-oriented zones showed an increasing trend; after ranking the CLUE value, the CLUE of the optimized development zones was the highest, followed by the ecological function, ecological economic, and key development zones, and that of the agricultural production zones was the lowest, indicating significant regional disparity. (3) The overall disparity of CLUE presented an upward trend, and the within-regional disparity is the main source of the overall disparity. (4) Neither σ convergence nor absolute β convergence occurred in the CLUE of the five major function-oriented zones, but conditional β convergence occurred among the optimized development and ecological economic zones. Although the planning of major function-oriented zones reflects the regional disparity and convergence of CLUE to some extent, the CLUE under the control of major function-oriented zones is not consistent with the function positioning.

Regional Disparities and Influencing Factors of Eco-Efficiency of Arable Land Utilization in China

“…If the negative effects cannot be systematically considered when constructing the evaluation system of arable land use efficiency, it will inevitably cause deviations between the measurement results and the actual situation [38]. To address this problem, scholars have attempted to comprehensively consider the impact of carbon emissions and other environmental pollutants when assessing arable land use efficiency [17,[39][40][41][42]. Considering the negative effect of carbon emission in the process of arable land utilization, scholars have included carbon emission as undesirable output into the evaluation system of arable land utilization efficiency, and systematically measured the actual level of arable land utilization in different regions [16,25,42].…”

Comprehensive Evaluation of Land Use Benefit in the Yellow River Basin from 1995 to 2018

“…The higher the land use benefits, the more reasonable the arrangement of land resources in terms of quantitative structure and space allocation, the higher the level of intensive land use, and the greater the potential for sustainable development. In the studies about land use benefit at home and abroad, the research perspectives have gradually changed from single benefit evaluation to comprehensive evaluations of economic, social, and ecological benefits; the research methods have been gradually diversified and complicated, including the entropy weight TOPSIS method, the two-dimensional quadrant method, the matter-element model, the Delphi method, and the time series multi-index method [4][5][6][7]; the research contents have involved benefit evaluation, spatial-temporal evolution, and coupling coordination degree [8][9][10][11][12][13][14]; the research scale has also expanded from micro to macro, including county, city, province, basin, urban agglomeration, and even the whole country; the research area has evolved from a simple administrative division to a special land or area with certain characteristics [15][16][17][18].…”

Study on the Contradiction between Population and Cultivated Land and the Priority Protection of Cultivated Land in the Policy of Poverty Alleviation: A Case Study of the Upper Reaches of Min River, Sichuan Province, China

“…Luo [37] thinks that slope farmland is the result of coupling and a coordinated evolution of humans and land in mountainous areas. Against the backdrop of different historical conditions, a landscape pattern with obvious temporal and spatial differences has formed [38]. To understand the coordination relationship between humans and land, the spatial coupling between settlement and cultivated land is analyzed based on a gridthat is, the ratio of the settlement area and cultivated land area falling into each grid:…”