The Impact of Land-Use Carbon Efficiency on Ecological Resilience—The Moderating Role of Heterogeneous Environmental Regulations

Abstract

China attaches great importance to land use and ecological civilization; hence, clarifying the relationship of land use on ecological resilience is crucial for urban development. The aim of this paper is to study the impact of land-use carbon efficiency on ecological resilience and the moderating role played by different environmental regulatory policies between the two, with the aim of providing a research basis and decision-making reference for the country’s ecological high-quality development by proposing suggestions for different subjects based on the results of this study. Taking 30 provinces and cities in mainland China from 2009 to 2022 as samples, the authors constructed an indicator system to measure their ecological resilience using the entropy method, measured their land-use carbon efficiency using the super SBM, and verified the mechanism of land-use carbon efficiency on ecological resilience by using the bidirectional fixed-effects model. Robustness and endogeneity tests confirmed the validity of the regression results. The following is a summary of this study’s findings: (1) Land-use carbon efficiency can enhance ecological resilience through various mechanisms such as scale promotion, structural upgrading, and technological progress. (2) Regional research shows that different regions have distinct effects of land-use carbon efficiency on ecological resilience. The northeastern region shows a non-significant inhibitory effect, whereas the eastern, middle, and western regions show varying degrees of promotion effects. Land-use carbon efficiency contributes to increased ecological resilience in resource-based and non-resource-based provinces, with resource-based provinces witnessing a greater increase in ecological resilience. The effects of land-use carbon efficiency on different aspects of ecological resilience are diverse, with ecosystem resistance and recovery being empowered. However, the precise mechanism through which ecosystem adaptability influences ecological resilience remains unclear. (3) Moreover, there is variation in the moderating impact of environmental legislation. Command-and-control environmental regulation impedes the positive impact of land-use carbon efficiency, and market-incentive environmental regulation strengthens their relationship, while spontaneous-participation environmental regulation does not significantly enhance their connection. It provides a new theoretical perspective for the study of ecological resilience, deepens the understanding of ecological resilience, and provides theoretical support for enhancing the resilience of ecosystems.