Abstract
Industrial land is an indispensable strategic resource in urban development that plays an indispensable role in ensuring the industrial space of urban construction and development. Measuring and analyzing the eco-efficiency of industrial land utilization (ECILU) can provide insights into how to maximize the input–output ratio of industrial land and ensure the sustainable development of land resources and economies. Based on the undesirable output slacks-based measure (SBM) model, choosing land, capital, and labor as input indicators, and the industrial added value and carbon emissions as desirable and undesirable output indicators, this study measured the ECILUs in 78 cities and 13 metropolitan areas in four Chinese major economic zones from 2007 to 2018, analyzed their spatial and temporal evolution characteristics and regional differences, and constructed a Tobit regression model to test the influence mechanism of each variable on the ECILUs in different regions. This has important theoretical and practical significance for the Chinese government in formulating relevant policies and realizing the green utilization of urban land in the future. Empirical results showed that the ECILUs in most cities were low and that the differences between regions were large. The ECILU in the Western Economic Zone was relatively high, followed by the Eastern, Central, and Northeastern Economic Zones. According to the ECILU value and urban synergy degree of each metropolitan area, this study divided the 13 metropolitan areas into four categories. The regression analysis results showed that the variables had different effects on the ECILUs of all cities and the four economic zones in China. It is suggested that all economic zones should reinforce the optimization of industrial structure, control industrial pollutant discharge, and solve the phenomenon of labor surplus. The Eastern Zone should maintain the growth of its economy while focusing on soil quality. The Central Zone should focus on the efficient use of infrastructure, and the Western, Northeastern, and Central Zones should balance the green coverage area and the industrial land area to ensure the efficient use of urban industrial land.
Highlights
Introduction iationsLand is the most basic production factor for economic development and the material carrier necessary for developing the real economy [1]
China’s metropolitan areas and cities, accelerating the construction of green-livable cities, and promoting the construction of ecological civilization, this study explored the following issues: (1) How did the efficiency of industrial land utilization (ECILU) of China’s 13 metropolitan areas change from 2007 to 2018 and did it improve over that time? (2) Is there spatial heterogeneity in the changing trend of urban ECILUs in different metropolitan areas and economic zones? (3) Is the ECILU
The results showed that the ECILUs in Xi’an metropolitan area (XA) and Changji metropolitan area (CJ) decreased significantly, and the ECILUs of the other 11 metropolitan areas showed a fluctuating upward trend from 2007 to 2018
Summary
The concept of “eco-efficiency,” proposed by Schaltegger and Sturm [6], is in the process of product development; the efficiency of output results and ecological environment should be considered simultaneously to promote the sustainable development of enterprises, regions, and countries. Since eco-efficiency considers the input–output and ecological environment in the process of human production, scholars have introduced it into many fields in social and economic life, such as the calculation and analysis of organizational efficiency, the use of natural resources and industrial output, and to explore the degree of sustainable development. It can be seen that when conducting research, scholars usually choose to measure the ecological efficiency of enterprises or specific industrial parks using land, labor, and capital as input indicators, and economic output as output indicators (Table 1). This study explored eco-efficiency from the perspective of the macroscopic view and carried out comparative research with the industries of different cities, metropolitan areas, and large economic zones as the main body, and enriched the research level under this theme
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