Spatio-Econometric Analysis of Urban Land Use Efficiency in China from the Perspective of Natural Resources Input and Undesirable Outputs: A Case Study of 287 Cities in China

Abstract

The rapid urbanization in China has had a huge impact on land use and the scarcity of land resources has become a constraint for sustainable urban development. As urban land is an indispensable material basis in economic development, measuring its use efficiency and adopting effective policies to improve urban land use efficiency (ULUE) are important links in maintaining sustainable economic growth. By establishing a comprehensive ULUE evaluation index system that emphasizes on incorporating the natural resources input and the undesirable output, ULUE from 2010 to 2016 was calculated based on super efficiency SBM model, and its potential influencing factors were explored using a spatial econometric model. The results show that: (1) temporally, the overall ULUE in China is upward growing, and the gap among regions is becoming gradually convergent. (2) Spatially, the ULUE of Chinese cities are positively correlated. (3) Economic agglomeration and industrial structure significantly improve ULUE in China, but the intensity of energy consumption has a negative impact on ULUE. We suggest that: (1) differentiated industrial development strategies should be formulated; (2) the economic growth pattern should be changed from energy-consuming to energy-saving; (3) priority should be given to innovation on science and education, so as to increase in clean energy input and cleaner production.

Relationship between Urban Land Use Efficiency and Economic Development Level in the Beijing–Tianjin–Hebei Region

“…This is also consistent with Xue et al (2022), who showed a "U-shaped" curve relationship between economic development and ULUE in the Yellow River basin [15]. However, the relationship between ULUE and EDL is spatially heterogeneous [30], and the relationship between them may be an inverted "U-shape" in other regions, for example, Han et al (2020) found an inverted "U-shaped" relationship between economic development and ULUE at the national scale [30]. That is, as the economy grows, the efficiency of ULUE may first increase rapidly, then grow slowly, and then level off or even decline.…”

“…Cao et al (2019) used the GWR model to analyze the contribution of per capita GDP impact factors to improve or reduce ULUE relative to other impact factors [29]. Han et al (2020) selected the spatial econometric model to explore the significant positive significant indigenous effect between the EDL and ULUE in Central, Western, and Northeastern China, and found no significant indigenous effect between the EDL and ULUE in the eastern region, that is, there was spatial heterogeneity in the relationship between ULUE and EDL [30]. In general, there are many studies that examine EDL as one of the many influencing factors of ULUE and explore the impact of EDL on ULUE through many influencing factors using spatial econometric analysis so as to realize the research on the relationship between ULUE and EDL.…”

“…In other fields of natural sciences, some scholars have studied the interrelationship between two variables based on the Tapio model, such as Wang et al (2019), who studied the decoupling relationship between urban industrial water use and economic growth in Beijing and Shanghai based on the Tapio decoupling model [31]. Song et al (2020) used the Tapio model to study the decoupling state between CO 2 and GDP at the provincial level in China [32], and Zhang et al (2020) investigated the decoupling state between energy footprint and economic growth in 29 countries worldwide based on the Tapio index [33]. Meanwhile, the Tapio model is often combined with the EKC model to refine the nonlinear relationship between natural resources and economic development.…”

Analysis of the Urban Land Use Efficiency in the New-Type Urbanization Process of China’s Yangtze River Economic Belt

“…This study referred to the research results of Niu et al [62], Deng et al [10], and Han et al [63] to analyze the intrinsic mechanism of the effect of the N-TU on the ULUE in four paths: social urbanization, economic urbanization, demographic urbanization, and spatial urbanization (Figure 2). H2.…”

Dynamic Evolution and the Mechanism behind the Coupling Coordination Relationship between Industrial Integration and Urban Land-Use Efficiency: A Case Study of the Yangtze River Economic Zone in China

“…However, the current conditions and reality in China reflect the fact that there are more people than the land can support, land resources are scarce, utilization efficiency is low, and land use causes serious damage to the environment [5][6][7]. Therefore, the traditional extensive mode of development of industrial land can no longer meet the requirements for improving the quality and efficiency of social and Land 2022, 11, 261 2 of 22 economic development [8][9][10][11]. The report of the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China pointed out that land resources should be saved and used intensively.…”