Spatio-Econometric Analysis of Urban Land Use Efficiency in China from the Perspective of Natural Resources Input and Undesirable Outputs: A Case Study of 287 Cities in China.

Xiao Han,Anlu Zhang,Yinying Cai

doi:10.3390/ijerph17197297

Abstract

The rapid urbanization in China has had a huge impact on land use and the scarcity of land resources has become a constraint for sustainable urban development. As urban land is an indispensable material basis in economic development, measuring its use efficiency and adopting effective policies to improve urban land use efficiency (ULUE) are important links in maintaining sustainable economic growth. By establishing a comprehensive ULUE evaluation index system that emphasizes on incorporating the natural resources input and the undesirable output, ULUE from 2010 to 2016 was calculated based on super efficiency SBM model, and its potential influencing factors were explored using a spatial econometric model. The results show that: (1) temporally, the overall ULUE in China is upward growing, and the gap among regions is becoming gradually convergent. (2) Spatially, the ULUE of Chinese cities are positively correlated. (3) Economic agglomeration and industrial structure significantly improve ULUE in China, but the intensity of energy consumption has a negative impact on ULUE. We suggest that: (1) differentiated industrial development strategies should be formulated; (2) the economic growth pattern should be changed from energy-consuming to energy-saving; (3) priority should be given to innovation on science and education, so as to increase in clean energy input and cleaner production.

Highlights

Cities are increasingly becoming complex systems of social, economic and ecological subsystems [1], in which land plays an important role in urban production and life [2]
This study aims to estimate the comprehensive efficiency of urban land use and analyzes the influencing factors of urban land use efficiency (ULUE)
The Maxdea 7.0 software (Realworld Software Company Ltd., Beijing, China) is used to estimate the ULUE of 287 cities in China based on the super efficiency slack-based measure (SBM) model (Table 3)

Summary

Introduction

Cities are increasingly becoming complex systems of social, economic and ecological subsystems [1], in which land plays an important role in urban production and life [2]. Human ever increasing demand driven by rapid urbanization exerts pressure on natural resources and induces consequent degradation of land quality and ecosystems [3], thereby reducing the high quality of urban development [4]. How to meet the requirement of high-quality urban development with limited land is becoming a global challenge [5]. Europe is a high-density populated area, where urban sprawl has encroached the suburban habitat, endangering the biodiversity. To address the challenges above, many countries in Europe such as Germany, France and The Netherlands have begun to adopt bio-economy strategies since 2002 [6,7]. Unlike the European Union (EU), North American is relatively sparsely populated and the main concerns with urban expansion are high-quality farmland loss and biodiversity disappearance

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Discussion

Conclusion