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A special issue of Sustainability (ISSN 2071-1050).

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (31 May 2017) | Viewed by 82781

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Prof. Dr. Hualin Xie

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Guest Editor

Director of Co-Innovation Center of Institutional Construction of Jiangxi Eco-Civilization, Jiangxi University of Finance and Economics, Nanchang 330013, China
Interests: sustainability; land use management; Ecological security; land use and land coverage; land use planning
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Dr. Yanni Yu

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Guest Editor

Institute of Resource, Environment and Sustainable Development, Jinan University, Guangzhou City 510632, China
Interests: corporate sustainability; sustainable development

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Land use patterns and land use changes are considered critical for sustainable development in developing countries. With the advent of rapid urbanization, rural transformation and the development of modern agriculture, China currently faces a number of land use challenges including, conversion of productive farmland to real estate development, excessive intensification of agricultural land, land degradation, farmland abandonment, emerging "hollow villages" and land fragmentation. These competing interests have produced fierce land use conflicts and negative environmental impacts and threaten sustainable land development. As the largest developing country in the world, the key difficulty facing China is how to manage and balance the use of land from the perspectives of socio-economic development, food security and natural conservation. The eighteenth central committee of the Communist Party of China has recommended important strategies "to optimize the spatial pattern of land development, to build scientific and reasonable urbanization, agricultural development and ecological security patterns, as well as to delineate control boundaries for production, living and ecological space utilization". To establish sustainable land use in China, it is essential to identify the major changes that are occurring in the use of land and their underlying motivators, control of the extensive expansion of developed land, protection of farmland and conservation land, regulation of unsustainable land use patterns and land use changes, improvement of land use efficiency and mitigation of negative environmental impacts. Despite the attention on sustainable land use in China, the extent of sustainable land use remains unclear. Its evaluation—the major obstacles to sustainable land use, and the tools that are available (e.g. market instruments, institutional innovation and policy reform) to establish sustainable land use in China—is equally unclear.

The Co-Innovation Center of Institutional Construction of Jiangxi Eco-Civilization in Jiangxi University of Finance and Economics will organize a workshop entitled “Sustainable Land Use in China" for this special issue. The plan is to invite many worldwide, notable scholars in the area of land use to contribute to this workshop.

This Special Issue will be open to researchers, from both the conference and the wider academic community. Major topics will include issues related to sustainable land use in China, including an integrated evaluation of land use sustainability, sustainable land management practices and land reform in China.

Prof. Hualin Xie
Dr. Yanni Yu
Guest Editors

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Keywords

Land use sustainability
Land use pattern
Land use change
Land use policy
Land degradation
Sustainable intensification
Sustainable land management
Sustainable natural resources management

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Published Papers (13 papers)

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Editorial

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210 KiB

Open AccessEditorial

Towards Sustainable Land Use in China: A Collection of Empirical Studies

by Hualin Xie

Sustainability 2017, 9(11), 2129; https://doi.org/10.3390/su9112129 - 18 Nov 2017

Cited by 19 | Viewed by 4168

Abstract

Achieving sustainable land use is one of the most important ways to achieve regional socio-economic sustainable development. We have collected 12 papers in this special issue “Sustainable Land Use in China” to show the varied application of sustainable land use studies and to provide meaningful decision-making information and policy implications for land use planners. We summarize the contributions to this special issue on sustainable land use and place them in perspective. Several studies focus on sustainable urban land use, some focus on sustainable rural land use, and others on environmental issues on land use. These studies have analyzed a broad array of topics related to land use, including the dynamic changes and driving forces of land use spatial patterns, sustainable land use, land use policy and optimization, and the environmental problems related to certain types of land use. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sustainable Land Use in China)

Research

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3678 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Spatio-Temporal Variations of Health Costs Caused by Chemical Fertilizer Utilization in China from 1990 to 2012

by Hong Yang, Xiaoyan Shen, Li Lai, Xianjin Huang and Yan Zhou

Sustainability 2017, 9(9), 1505; https://doi.org/10.3390/su9091505 - 24 Aug 2017

Cited by 16 | Viewed by 4761

Abstract

The health impacts caused by chemical fertilizer utilization have challenged long-term sustainable development in many countries, particularly developing countries. Based on the emergy analysis method, we estimated the temporal and spatial variations of the health costs, through atmospheric, water, and soil pathways, of chemical fertilizer utilization in China during the period from 1990 to 2012. The results showed an obvious increasing trend of health costs from 1.8 billion Yuan in 1990 to 23.0 billion Yuan in 2012, while the ratio of health costs to agriculture output value declined slowly and became stable in recent years. Regional differences were remarkable and were significantly correlated to the levels of economic development (r = 0.843 and p < 0.001) and crop-sown area in the region (r = 0.588 and p < 0.001). Economically developed regions, especially the eastern coastal provinces, had much higher costs than the western regions. Meanwhile, fertilizer consumption shifted from the eastern to the northwest region, which was the same as the health costs. This study provides a reference to estimate the health costs of fertilizer utilization, and the results highlight the importance of sustainable development in China. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sustainable Land Use in China)

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19586 KiB

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The Effect of Urbanization and Farmland Transfer on the Spatial Patterns of Non-Grain Farmland in China

by Xiaofeng Zhao, Yuqian Zheng, Xianjin Huang, Mei-Po Kwan and Yuntai Zhao

Sustainability 2017, 9(8), 1438; https://doi.org/10.3390/su9081438 - 15 Aug 2017

Cited by 56 | Viewed by 6136

Abstract

Rapid urbanization has accelerated farmland transfer in China, which in turn has increased the cultivation intensity of non-grain farmland (NGF). The aim of this paper was to analyze the spatial patterns of non-grain farmland (NGF) at municipal-level cities in China from 2000 to 2014, and explore the influence of urbanization and farmland transfer on the spatial patterns of non-grain farmland (NGF). The study found that both NGF area and share have a consistent variation trend which increased first, then decreased, and increased again. There were great differences between NGF area and share, which had various spatial patterns. Global Moran’s I of NGF area and share had strong positive spatial autocorrelations in 2000, 2005, 2010, and 2014, and revealed remarkable clustered spatial patterns. Local spatial autocorrelation analysis found that the spatial agglomeration pattern of the NGF area and the share changed significantly from 2000 to 2014. The spatial patterns of NGF were significantly influenced by regional differences in urbanization and farmland transfer. These results provide critical insights for formulating differential farmland transfer policies and policies for sustainable development of agriculture and rural economy in China. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sustainable Land Use in China)

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4113 KiB

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Differentiated Optimization of Sustainable Land Use in Metropolitan Areas: A Demarcation of Functional Units for Land Consolidation

by Jinming Yan, Yue Shen and Fangzhou Xia

Sustainability 2017, 9(8), 1356; https://doi.org/10.3390/su9081356 - 2 Aug 2017

Cited by 15 | Viewed by 5048

Abstract

In China, the combination of land supply finitude and land use inefficiency has become a barrier to sustainable development in urban society and the economy. Land consolidation has been widely implemented as a tool to improve the quality and quantity of land use, but is mainly limited to rural areas and focuses on farmland production, while not taking into consideration of aspects such as life, production, and ecology. Furthermore, contemporary research usually focuses on one land consolidation project, ignoring practical project arrangement at a regional macroscopic level and lacking specific differentiation in designing land consolidation projects. This study aims to create a method to determine functional units for land consolidation (FULC) in metropolitan areas to facilitate the sustainable use of land resources and improve the efficiency of land use. Moreover, a framework to assess the overall demarcation of FULC is developed. The proposed model considers the production, life, and ecology functions in the demarcation decisions regarding FULC. A typical metropolitan area, that is, Haidian District, Beijing, is used as a case study to demonstrate this framework. The analysis shows that the model can provide technical support and practical references for planners and executors to arrange different land consolidation projects at the macroscopic level. By taking all production, life, and ecological properties of the land parcels into consideration, the proposed model enables local governments to meet their sustainable development targets by managing specialized projects for FULC as a spatial governance platform. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sustainable Land Use in China)

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411 KiB

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Evaluation of Ecological Environmental Quality in a Coal Mining Area by Modelling Approach

by Chaodong Yan, Hongjun Dai and Wen Guo

Sustainability 2017, 9(8), 1265; https://doi.org/10.3390/su9081265 - 27 Jul 2017

Cited by 21 | Viewed by 4513

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to explore the effective method of the comprehensive evaluation of ecological environmental quality in a coal mining area. Firstly, we analyzed the ecological environmental effect of the coal mining area according to Pigovian Tax theory and, according to the results of the analysis and the demand for the selection of evaluation indices by the comprehensive evaluation, built the corresponding comprehensive evaluation index system. We then used the correlation function method to determine the relative weights of each index. We determined the basic standards of a comprehensive evaluation of ecological environmental quality in a coal mining area according to the actual situation of ecological environmental quality assessments in coal mining areas in our country and the relevant provisions of the government. On this basis, we built the two-level extension comprehensive evaluation model for the evaluation of ecological environmental quality in mining areas. Finally, we chose a certain coal mining area of Yanzhou Coal Mining Company Limited as the specific case. We used the relevant statistic data, technical and economic indices and the extension evaluation model to do the applied research of the comprehensive evaluation and tested the effectiveness of the comprehensive evaluation model. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sustainable Land Use in China)

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1735 KiB

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Characterizing the Land Shareholding Cooperative: A Case Study of Shanglin Village in Jiangsu, China

by Yi Ren, Yang Bian and Tao He

Sustainability 2017, 9(7), 1175; https://doi.org/10.3390/su9071175 - 6 Jul 2017

Cited by 18 | Viewed by 5295

Abstract

The land tenure reform is the key to sustainable development in rural China. Without challenging the collective ownership of land, the land shareholding cooperative (LSC) system came into being and is being strongly endorsed by the authority: It re-collectivizes the contracted land from peasants and enables better regional planning and large-scale modern agricultural production. This paper studies a specific LSC (Shanglin LSC in the Sunan region of the Yangtze River Delta) based on our fieldwork. We found that the LSC system is a bottom-up institutional innovation towards sustainable land use in China. Both village cadres and ordinary peasants’ decision making contributes to its successful establishment and development. This shareholding system increases peasants’ income through dividends and employment opportunities. The concentrated land enables ecological farming. Acting as a quasi-government agency, the LSC also provides public service and social security to the village community. On the other hand, the LSCs’ success depends on certain prior conditions and the LSCs’ multiple missions may contradict each other from time to time, and lead to loss of efficiency. We argue that this approach to land tenure reform may not be universally applied to any regions in China. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sustainable Land Use in China)

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2245 KiB

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Spatiotemporal Fragmentation of Urban Residential Land Use: A Case Study from China

by Xue Liu, Helin Liu, Wanzhen Chen and Zhonghao Zhang

Sustainability 2017, 9(7), 1096; https://doi.org/10.3390/su9071096 - 23 Jun 2017

Cited by 12 | Viewed by 4531

Abstract

Given the scarcity of land resources in most Chinese cities, the fragmentation of construction land use is a greater constraint than expansion for urban sustainability. Therefore, there is an urgent need to quantify the fragmentation level of construction land use for planning and managing practices. This study focuses on residential land use, which is one of the most important types of construction land use within built-up urban areas. Based on land use maps of the built-up areas, derived from master plans between 1994 and 2015, multi-spatiotemporal patterns of residential land use fragmentation are classified through a case study of Nantong, a rapidly urbanizing and industrializing city. The results show that the fragmentation of residential land use presented a slight descending trend from 1994 to 2002, and a sharp ascending trend from 2003 to 2015. Moreover, residential land use fragmentation in newly established zones witnessed the highest increase in fragmentation. Additionally, the analysis reveals that the fragmentation of residential land use reflects distinct variations across different urbanization stages, and the fragmentation level of residential land use is related to development density in Nantong city. Finally, socio-economic data was used to provide a quantitative insight into exploring the driving forces through multivariate linear regression. The results show that, triggered by land market reform, residential land use fragmentation in Nantong was mainly due to the rapid growth of the tertiary industry, and government policies. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sustainable Land Use in China)

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11076 KiB

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Assessing Impervious Surface Changes in Sustainable Coastal Land Use: A Case Study in Hong Kong

by Kapo Wong, Yuanzhi Zhang, Jin Yeu Tsou and Yu Li

Sustainability 2017, 9(6), 1029; https://doi.org/10.3390/su9061029 - 15 Jun 2017

Cited by 9 | Viewed by 4801

Abstract

In Hong Kong, reclamation is the main method for developing new land use areas as most country parks and mountains are protected under a land policy that emphasizes conservation for their high ecological value. Therefore, the land use for urbanized area in Hong Kong is limited, which has become an issue of concern. Hong Kong’s population is increasing; however, the amount of available land use is insufficient to meet the demand. Developing a high density of buildings is one of the critical strategies of Hong Kong’s government. Highly dense development may result in an urban heat island as well as health problems. In this study, we present an assessment of urban impervious surface changes in coastal megacities like Hong Kong based on satellite images. Landsat satellite images are employed to analyze urban impervious surface changes from 1995 to 2015 in coastal urban areas of Hong Kong. The results show that the increase of impervious surface area is almost the same as the increase in land reclamation area. This suggests that Hong Kong’s land use policy, which underlines conservation for high ecological value and reclamation, may be able to maintain its sustainable development of coastal land use. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sustainable Land Use in China)

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2441 KiB

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Characterizing Spatiotemporal Pattern of Land Use Change and Its Driving Force Based on GIS and Landscape Analysis Techniques in Tianjin during 2000–2015

by Yafei Li and Gaohuan Liu

Sustainability 2017, 9(6), 894; https://doi.org/10.3390/su9060894 - 25 May 2017

Cited by 56 | Viewed by 5090

Abstract

The spatial and temporal characteristics and driving factors analysis of regional land use are the core scientific problems in the research of ecological environment and human sustainable development. It is also an important basis for the government to formulate land management policy. Based on the land use maps of 2000, 2005, 2010 and 2015, this article analyzed the spatiotemporal pattern of land use change in Tianjin, and determined the relative importance of each driving factor of land use change. The main features of land use change were the continuous expansion of built-up land (1386.89 km²/74.73% gains) and the decrease of arable land area (1181.60 km²/16.84% losses). The area and intensity of land use change were not completely consistent, such as Wuqing and Jixian. The hotspots of land use change mainly were located in the main urban region in Tianjin, around the suburban settlements and Binhai New Area. The landscape pattern in the research region has also changed significantly. The Largest patch index (LPI) and largest shape index (LSI) of arable land showed an increasing trend, and the degree of landscape fragmentation of arable land was deepened. The trend of landscape index of built-up land was similar to that of arable land, but the change intensity was more severe. In addition, the article also used the stepwise regression analysis in the multiple regression to analyze the relative importance of various driving factors, indicating that the driving factors of the built-up land and arable land change were obviously different in different periods. Government policies also have a significant impact on land use change, such as establishing the Tianjin Binhai New Area (TBNA). Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sustainable Land Use in China)

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17500 KiB

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The Effectiveness of Planning Control on Urban Growth: Evidence from Hangzhou, China

by Yizhou Wu, Peilei Fan, Bo Li, Zutao Ouyang, Yong Liu and Heyuan You

Sustainability 2017, 9(5), 855; https://doi.org/10.3390/su9050855 - 19 May 2017

Cited by 20 | Viewed by 8538

Abstract

Urban sprawl presents a serious challenge for sustainable urban land use. Urban planning attempts to guarantee sustainable urban development and proper use of land resources. However, a large gap usually exists between planning and actual development. This paper aims to analyze the evolutionary characteristics of urban form and the spatiotemporal dynamics of urban planning from 1964 to 2013, using the case of Hangzhou, China. We proposed a framework that included remote sensing, landscape metrics, and control effectiveness indexes. The results indicated that urban planning failed to perform effectively in Hangzhou, reflected by the uncontrolled urban sprawl during all the planning periods. The low effectiveness of planning was resulted from multiple factors, including historical economic events that made expansion unexpected, functional orientation of planning which drove fragmented suburbanization, the ineffective methods for forecasting population and land use, and the influences by the market forces. The findings deepen the understanding of the impacts of urban planning, and provide references for making rational urban management decisions and sustainable urban land management. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sustainable Land Use in China)

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1832 KiB

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Factors Influencing Farmer Willingness to Fallow Winter Wheat and Ecological Compensation Standards in a Groundwater Funnel Area in Hengshui, Hebei Province, China

by Hualin Xie, Lingjuan Cheng and Tiangui Lv

Sustainability 2017, 9(5), 839; https://doi.org/10.3390/su9050839 - 16 May 2017

Cited by 37 | Viewed by 5911

Abstract

Land use/land cover change will have a certain impact on the regional ecological environment. This study uses the questionnaire survey method, an opportunity cost method and a logistic model to evaluate the suitability of an ecological compensation standard for a winter- wheat-fallow cropping system in a groundwater funnel area in Hebei. The main factors affecting farmers’ willingness to fallow fields provide a theoretical basis for scientifically and rationally developing a rotation policy in the groundwater funnel area. The results indicate the following: (1) nearly 87% of the surveyed farmers would accept a winter-wheat-fallow policy, whereas 13% would not; (2) farmer educational level, the total number of participants in the agricultural labor force, dependency rate, farmers’ attitudes toward a winter wheat-fallow policy in the groundwater funnel area and the farmer level of trust in government policy have significant positive effects farmer intention to fallow, whereas the number of days of participation in farming, the cultivated land quality and the per capita area of cultivated land have a significant negative effect on farmers’ fallowing intentions; (3) considering only the impact of winter wheat on groundwater, the proposed compensation standard for farmers who accept the policy is 0.00095 $/hm²; (4) some policy implications are put forward to improve the effectiveness of the winter wheat fallowing policy in the groundwater funnel. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sustainable Land Use in China)

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4433 KiB

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Projections of Future Land Use in Bangladesh under the Background of Baseline, Ecological Protection and Economic Development

by Shaikh Shamim Hasan, Xiangzheng Deng, Zhihui Li and Dongdong Chen

Sustainability 2017, 9(4), 505; https://doi.org/10.3390/su9040505 - 28 Mar 2017

Cited by 76 | Viewed by 15813

Abstract

Land is one of the important input resources in a highly populous and land-scarce country such as Bangladesh. When different factors change (such as, geophysical, proximity, socioeconomic and climatic), there are dramatic changes in the spatial pattern of land uses. Thus, shedding light on the dynamics of land use and land cover changes has great importance for finding the changing pattern of land use in Bangladesh. In the present study, we predicted the land use and land cover changes from 2010 to 2030 under baseline, ecological protection priority and economic growth scenarios in Bangladesh. On this basis, we applied a previously developed Dynamics of Land Systems (DLS) model to simulate the changes in land uses according to the driving mechanisms. The findings indicate that cultivated land declines and built-up area expansion is common under all three scenarios. However, the future land use demand shows differences under different scenarios. The results under the ecological protection priority scenario shows that forest area and grassland will increase more, while under economic growth scenario, built-up area will expand dramatically in the future. The present research results furnish meaningful decision-making information for planners to conserve and/or exploit land resources in Bangladesh in a more sustainable manner. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sustainable Land Use in China)

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1277 KiB

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Spatial Analysis of Chinese Grain Production for Sustainable Land Management in Plain, Hill, and Mountain Counties

by Jinlang Zou and Qun Wu

Sustainability 2017, 9(3), 348; https://doi.org/10.3390/su9030348 - 27 Feb 2017

Cited by 9 | Viewed by 6250

Abstract

In the context of China’s food security, spatially explicit information on grain production is an important asset to achieve the sustainable management of cultivated land. Previous studies have shown that spatial mismatches exist between grain production and water and cultivated land resources. In this paper, county-level data are used to investigate the degree of spatial (mis)match between grain output and the geographical distribution patterns of plain, hill, and mountain counties. We estimate the difference in grain output between these different types of counties with a Spatial Autoregression Model. The results indicate that plain counties have the highest grain output, followed by hill counties and mountain counties subsequently. The reasons for the higher production in plain counties lie in the presence of more cultivated land, as well as a higher degree of irrigation and agricultural mechanization. The current pattern of Chinese total grain production follows the law of substituting labor with mechanization. Improving efficiency in the use of water resources and chemical fertilizer is both urgent and crucial. In this paper, we propose that the future roles for total grain production in relation to landforms should be: increased production and competitiveness in plain counties, a stabilization of capacity in hill counties, and a decrease in grain production in mountain counties. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sustainable Land Use in China)

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