Spatiotemporal Pattern Differentiation and Influencing Factors of Cultivated Land Use Efficiency in Hubei Province under Carbon Emission Constraints

Abstract

The rapid conversion of cultivated land resources has posed a severe danger to national food security, where the primary concerns are the quantity as well as the quality of the land being cultivated. Cultivated land use efficiency (CLUE) reflects the rational allocation and utilization level of cultivated land, labor, capital, and other factors so as to maximize output and minimize cost. In this study, carbon emissions were included as an unexpected output into the measurement framework of CLUE. The super SBM undesirable model, Spatial analysis model, and Tobit model were comprehensively used to measure the difference pattern and influencing factors of CLUE in 72 counties of Hubei Province from 2005 to 2020. The results show the following: the CLUE in Hubei Province showed significant regional differences and temporal variation characteristics. During the observation period of 2005 to 2020, the overall CLUE in Hubei Province increased, reaching 0.7475 by 2020, but was still at a low level (less than 1). Due to the limitation of topographic factors, this does not show obvious spatial agglomeration characteristics on the whole. In general, the CLUE value formed after considering the carbon emission index in most counties decreased by different ranges compared to the value formed without considering the carbon emission index. From the perspective of transverse terrain comparison, the measured results of the super SBM undesirable model showed that the cultivated land utilization efficiency of the mountain and hill was higher than that of the plain. From the vertical time comparison, the CLUE of different regions showed an upward trend, indicating obvious regional differences in the study period. The results of the Tobit model show that farmers’ income level can actively promote the improvement of CLUE in Hubei Province. Urbanization level, rural power consumption, per capita cultivated land scale, and agricultural mechanization level have an impact on cultivated land use efficiency as a whole, but the impact has topographic heterogeneity. This study can provide theoretical and technical reference for the improvement of regional cultivated land efficiency and the formulation of cultivated land protection strategies and policies.