Change in land-use structure due to urbanisation in China

Abstract

Evidence on the influence of urbanisation on land-use structure in China can provide a scientific basis for sustainable land-use and ecological protection. However, previous studies have not completely explained the mechanisms of land-use structure change during rapid urbanisation. To address this gap, in the present study, the land-use intensity and information entropy of land-use structure from 1980 to 2020 were measured to represent urbanisation level and land-use structure for the corresponding period using land-use/cover datasets in China. The impact of urbanisation on the information entropy of land-use structure was analysed from multiple perspectives based on a set of panel regression models. The results showed that the land-use intensity in China presented a continuously increasing trend, whereas information entropy of land-use structure exhibited an increasing and then decreasing tendency during the study period. There was a significant spatial dependence between land-use intensity and information entropy of land-use structure in China, as indicated by the inverted U-shaped curve. We found that the higher the economic development level, the greater the threshold values. In addition, a 1% increase in land-use intensity in a region with a better economic development level might lead to a greater increase in the information entropy of land-use structure. The findings of this study indicated that a combination of cross-regional collaborative governance and differentiated management strategies is effective in optimising land-use structure during rapid urbanisation in China and other countries.