Evaluation and Optimization of Urban Land-Use Efficiency: A Case Study in Sichuan Province of China

Mengchao Yao,Yihua Zhang

doi:10.3390/su13041771

Abstract

In the recent 10 years, China’s housing prices and land prices have risen rapidly, resulting in precious land resources, thus restricting the development of the cities. How to effectively measure urban land-use efficiency and how to optimize it has become a stumbling block on the road of sustainable development in China. This article focuses on the vital province in southwest China—Sichuan Province, which is facing the problem of insufficient land-use efficiency and uses the data of 32 cities from 2003 to 2018 to carry out the research. Based on the measurement results of urban land-use efficiency in Sichuan Province and its temporal and spatial evolution characteristics, this paper uses the SDM model to verify that the land-use efficiency can be optimized from the three aspects of innovation, industrial structure, and economic connections. The conclusion shows: (1) There is a weak decoupling relationship between urban land use and economic development in Sichuan Province. The urban land-use efficiency has the characteristics of polarization of more than two ends and less in the middle, but the gap is gradually reduced; (2) Time series level, urban land-use efficiency in various regions is increasing, and potential benchmark technology progress is the main reason for the increase; (3) At the spatial distribution level, urban land-use efficiency has spatial autocorrelation, forming an obvious “center-periphery” distribution pattern; (4) Innovation, economic connection, and industrial structure optimization can promote the improvement of land-use efficiency, and economic connection has a positive spillover effect on the land-use efficiency of surrounding areas. Accordingly, this study puts forward some targeted suggestions on improving urban land-use efficiency in Sichuan Province.

Highlights

In recent years, there has been a rapid urbanization trend around the world [1].Urbanization has become an essential engine for the economic development of developing countries
Except for individual cities in individual years, the urban land-use elasticity of almost all cities is less than 1, among which the proportion between 0 and 0.8 is 53.1%, 87.5%, and 84.4%, respectively, which indicates that the growth rate of urban land-use efficiency is always lower than the growth rate of GDP of secondary and tertiary industries, but most cities are still in a weak decoupling state
Through the study of the time-space evolution law of urban land-use efficiency in various cities of Sichuan Province, it is of great practical significance to optimize the urban land allocation in Sichuan Province, improve the urban land-use efficiency and sustainability of the land, and promote the healthy development of urbanization

Summary

Introduction

There has been a rapid urbanization trend around the world [1]. Urbanization has become an essential engine for the economic development of developing countries. Economic development has fed back the expansion and growth of cities [2,3]. In keeping with the times, China has vigorously promoted the process of urbanization and achieved remarkable achievements. At the beginning of reform and opening-up, China’s urbanization rate was only 17.90%, and by 2017 it reached 58.52%, which is about 2.5% higher than the global average. The annual growth rate of 1.04% is far ahead, and this trend has not faded, still showing strong growth potential [5,6]

Methods

Results

Discussion

Conclusion