Abstract
The rapid urban and industrial development in China has put pressure on the limited cultivated land resources. In ecologically fragile areas, such as the Dongting Lake Eco-economic Zone, land pollution and waste emissions from agricultural production cause irreversible damage to cultivated land. Thus, a method to assess the sustainability of cultivated land use efficiency (CLUE) is explored. Using the panel data of 25 districts in the province from 2007 to 2017, this study incorporates agricultural non-point source pollution and carbon emissions into undesirable outputs of cultivated land. The SBM(Slack-based Measure)-undesirable model was applied to measure the spatiotemporal characteristics of CLUE under environmental constraints. This study finds that CLUE with environmental constraints is significantly lower than CLUE without environmental constraints, and the degree of the impacts of the constraints differs among regions. Second, from 2007 to 2017, the average CLUE of the province showed a downward trend in each year; this is due to the side effects of redundant inputs and undesired outputs. Third, in 2017, the CLUE of the Dongting Lake Eco-economic Zone was high in the west and low in the east, and the redundant inputs of CLUE were livestock, fertilizer, and pesticide. The study concludes by recommending some policies.
Highlights
Cultivated land resources are the basis of human survival and development, and they guarantee global food and ecological security
The average cultivated land use efficiency (CLUE) in the Dongting Lake Eco-economic Zone from 2007 to 2017 was 0.662, which means that the current actual output level is 66.2% of the ideal output level
The results show that the CLUE with environmental constraints is significantly lower than the CLUE without environmental constraints, indicating that it has high sustainable land use potential to be improved
Summary
Cultivated land resources are the basis of human survival and development, and they guarantee global food and ecological security. Many countries have enacted laws and policies to ensure effective use and protection of cultivated land [1,2,3]. Hawkesford (2014) indicated that the effect of urbanization on production factors in rural regions became increasingly evident, especially the input and output of cultivated land utilization caused by regional ecological environment deterioration [7]. Due to the locust invasion disaster and the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, the global food crisis has become a critical issue. These issues put more pressure on the protection of natural resources and ecosystem globally and further deviate from sustainable development. Using cultivated land resources efficiently and reasonably has become the focus of and a challenge to sustainable development worldwide [8,9]
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