Coupling Coordination Analysis of Livelihood Efficiency and Land Use for Households in Poverty-Alleviated Mountainous Areas

Fang Su,Haiyang Shang,Jiangbo Chang

doi:10.3390/land10111115

Abstract

The interaction between livelihood means and land use pattern of households is the core of the interactive coupling of the human-land system. This study focuses on Qinba mountainous area in southern Shaanxi province, a typical poverty-alleviated mountainous area. With the help of the coupling coordination degree model, kernel density estimation, and trend surface analysis, this study constructs the coupling coordination degree of livelihood efficiency and land use for households, and analyzes the differences between households’ livelihood efficiency and land use level, as well as the coupling coordination relationship between households livelihood efficiency and land use in different types and regions. The research conclusions are as follows. (1) For households in the Qinba mountainous area, southern Shaanxi province, the livelihood efficiency is at a medium level of 0.681, the land use is at a low level of 0.127, while the coupling coordination degree 0.526 is at the primary coordination state. (2) With the increase of nonagricultural degree, the coupling coordination degree of households increases first, and then decreases. (3) The coupling coordination degree for households east-to-west is “sagging”, while south-to-north diagram is “hogging”. (4) The distribution of the coupling coordination degree for agriculture-dependent households east-to-west (the “sagging” diagram) is opposite to the other types of households. By analogy, the distribution of the coupling coordination degree for nonagriculture and agriculture-dependent households north-to-south (the “hogging” diagram) is opposite to the other types of households. The coupling coordination between the households’ livelihood efficiency and land use level is affected by the households’ regional development level, natural resources, geographic location, infrastructure availability and many other factors. Making appropriate livelihood development plans based on the types of households and regional space can both effectively improve the livelihood conditions, as well as offer guidance in promoting regional human-land activity coordination and ensuring sustainable development.

Highlights

The human-land relationship and its evolution are key issues for rural development, and the core content of research on human-land relationship is to reveal the interaction and influence mechanism between the population system and the land system, coordinate the human-land relationship, and promote regional sustainable development [1]
(1) For households in the Qinba mountainous area, southern Shaanxi province, the livelihood efficiency is at a medium level of 0.681, the land use is at a low level of 0.127, while the coupling coordination degree 0.526 is at the primary coordination state
The coupling degree reflects the degree of interdependence and interaction of livelihood efficiency system vs. land use system, the development degree reflects the overall benefit or level of livelihood efficiency system vs. land use system, and the coupling coordination degree refers to the degree of benign coupling in the interaction of the two systems, which can reflect the degree of coordinated development of livelihood efficiency system vs. land use system [41,42]

Summary

Introduction

The human-land relationship and its evolution are key issues for rural development, and the core content of research on human-land relationship is to reveal the interaction and influence mechanism between the population system and the land system, coordinate the human-land relationship, and promote regional sustainable development [1]. The tense human-land relationship and land in China’s mountainous areas, as showcased here by the Qinba mountain area in southern Shaanxi province, reveal a shortage of per capita cultivated land, its lower quality, weak agricultural infrastructure and lower economic benefits. This situation seriously restricts the development of households, preconditions the massive migration of the rural labor force, and increasingly highlights the problems in nonagricultural rural industries, obsolete production lines and poor natural resources [2]. The social and economic development level, policy environment, resource endowment, land fragmentation, land transfer, family characteristics of households, agricultural production subsidies, and the proportion of economic crops and other factors have an impact on the land use level of households [17,18,19]

Methods

Results

Discussion

Conclusion