Association between Rural Land Use Transition and Urban–Rural Integration Development: From 2009 to 2018 Based on County-Level Data in Shandong Province, China

Nengneng Shen,Zhiheng Yang,Yanbo Qu,Bailin Zhang

doi:10.3390/land10111228

Nengneng Shen, Zhiheng Yang + Show 2 more

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https://doi.org/10.3390/land10111228

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Abstract

Integrated development in urban and rural areas has led to a new form of urban–rural interdependence, which promotes rural territorial functional evolution and land use changes. Rural land use transition, showing the synchronous development between cities and villages, is an important window through which to observe integrated development in urban and rural areas. We focus on uncovering the association between rural land use transition and urban–rural integration development (URID), put forward a dynamic relationship assumption between rural land use transformation and URID stages based on the transmission mechanism of urban–rural linkages, and undertake empirical analysis using the panel regression model with the data of county-level administrative units in Shandong Province, China. The results show that rural land use transition has maintained a close association with URID, and that the changes in cultivated land, forest land, and surface-water area are highly related to URID. There are different leading urban–rural linkages in rural areas around big-sized cities, mid-sized cities, and small-sized cities, which determine whether rural areas are in different URID stages of high, medium, or low levels. Further, rural areas can take different actions to promote URID at different stages through strengthening or introducing urban–rural linkages driven by economies of scale and deepening urbanization. This provides a reference for developing countries to formulate rural land use policies on achieving the goal of URID.

Highlights

Land use and cover change are the projection of regional socio-economic activities in space, which implies the interaction between land resources and wider aspects of development [1]
We focus on exploring the association mechanism between rural land use transition and URID, select Shandong Province in northern China as the research area for empirical analysis, and explore the transformation process from the traditional urban–rural dual structure system to the urban–rural unitary structure system through rural land use transition, so as to answer two questions, ‘Is there a relationship between rural land use transition and URID?’ and ‘How are the land use transitions associated with URID?’ We provide a methodological contribution for quantitatively measuring the urban–rural integration development and the effect of rural land use transformation on URID and expose a theoretical methodological model in capturing the URID effects of rural land use transition
After the log transformation of the data, panel regression analysis was carried out to judge the association between rural land use transition and URID from 2009 to 2018

Summary

Introduction

Land use and cover change are the projection of regional socio-economic activities in space, which implies the interaction between land resources and wider aspects of development [1]. The dramatic increase in urban construction land leads to the massive loss of arable land, mainly characterized by urban sprawl and rural shrinkage [4]; on the other hand, with the changing of urban spatial structure and industrial designs, the functional position of rural areas is becoming more pluralistic. It includes the agricultural production, and reflects the market returns or policy support that rural areas can obtain from food safety, minimum living standard security, landscape value, environmental protection, etc. It represents the formation of the mechanism of promoting harmonized development between urban and rural areas, which is urban–rural integration development (URID)

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