Understanding Idle Land Using Local Environmental Characteristics: A Case Study of Liuyang, China

Abstract

Idle land represents a major challenge to sustainable land management and the effective utilization of land resources. Achieving a comprehensive understanding of idle land is crucial to reduce land waste and promoting sustainable socio-economic development. While previous research has mainly focused on the concepts and governance of idle land, limited attention has been paid to its local environmental characteristics (LECs), this study aims to research idle land in Liuyang City to better understand its spatial distribution pattern and association with LESc for sustainable land use practices. The research employs various techniques, including testing the validity of Zipf’s law in relation to idle land, using spatial autocorrelation methods to determine its spatial distribution at the town/subdistrict level, and employing spatial-semantic clustering to identify spatio-LEC patterns of idle land. The results show that the areal distribution of idle land at the town/subdistrict level is close to the ideal state. Additionally, the study identifies non-randomness in the spatial patterns of idle land and observes links among different types of idle land with varying uses.