Performance of urban land use pattern evolution and mechanism in China during the transformation period

Abstract

China is currently experiencing a transition period from traditional society to modern society, agricultural society to industrial society, and planned economic system to market economic system. Thus, the structure of urban land use changes significantly and urban land use needs material space and cultural space reconstitution. In the background of transformation development, measuring performance of urban land use becomes an important research topic and has practical significance for urban land resources optimal allocation and urban development reconstruction.Taking 31 provinces in China as the research object, the paper built up an evaluation index system of urban land use performance based on four aspects of construction, effectiveness, efficiency and management. The improved entropy method, the spatial statistical model, R/S analysis method and PCA model are used to preliminarily discuss the performance of provincial urban land use space- time pattern evolution and mechanism from 2000 to 2012. The study showed that:(1) the performance level of provincial urban land use was on the rise and showed an obvious regional difference which is characterized by an increasing trend in East-West direction and an inverted "U"-shaped pattern in North-South direction.(2) The performance of provincial urban land use had a positive correlation with spatial cluster phenomenon; partial performance hot spot areas were mainly located in the Beijing-Tianjin region and the Yangtze River Delta, and extended to the Pearl River Delta; the performance cold spot areas formed a stable "L"-shaped pattern which were mainly concentrated in western China; the performance of provincial urban land use had an obvious fractal characteristic and showed a growing trend that the significantly growing areas were located in the Beijing- Tianjin region and the Yangtze River Delta.(3) Urbanization, industrial structure, technological level and market have comprehensively driven the performance of provincial urban land use space-time pattern evolution.To promote the performance of provincial urban land use, the eastern region in the future should improve urban land marketization, renew the concept of land resources management and continuously optimize allocation of land resource utilization structure; while the western region should raise regional urbanization development level, promote regional technology progress, optimize urban industrial structure, and develop the secondary and tertiary industries.