The goal of ecological civilization construction is to realize the harmonious coexistence of human and nature. Land is the spatial carrier of ecological civilization construction. Land use types or behaviors reflect the level of intensive use of land resources, leading to different ecological environmental effects, thereby affecting the level of regional ecological civilization construction. This issue, “Land Use and Ecological Civilization”, discusses the theory and method of land use management in the view of ecological civilization from the aspects of land use efficiency, land use change, land multi-functional trade-off, land ecosystem service and land ecological risk by selecting 14 representative papers, providing practical reference for the formation of the land use mode and behavioral system of ecological civilization. With abundant research levels, this issue covers varied research scales such as village, county and province, various landform types such as plain and hill, and typical land use areas at home and abroad such as East China, Central China, Northwest China, Yangtze River Economic Belt and Japan. Being frontier and practical, the multidisciplinary research methods in this issue include literature research method, fractal theory, qualitative comparative analysis, VAR model, and econometrics, among others. Focusing on the prominent problems in the process of land use, this issue deeply discusses the hot topics such as land ecological efficiency, spatial behavior characteristics, land use structure optimization and ecological risk assessment. This issue not only reviews the current literature on urgent land use issues such as arable land abandonment and land use risk, but also tries to conduct trade-off and synergy analysis on the varied functions of the rural landscape and ecosystem, thus providing a theoretical and empirical basis for solving land use problems from the perspective of ecological civilization. This issue reflects the realistic urgency of guiding land use with the concept of ecological civilization, and provides theoretical guidance and technical support from the aspects of methods and research framework. Finally, this issue proposes five hot topics in the field of land use research from the perspective of ecological civilization in the future, namely, ecological management of land use structure, ecological evolution mechanism of land use process, land ecological use mode, early warning and regulation of land ecological security pattern, ecological management and control of land use behavior.

In the context of high-quality economic development and coordinated regional development, this paper measures the urban land use efficiency of 275 prefecture-level cities in China from 2003 to 2016, taking into account the unexpected output (environmental pollution), and explores the temporal and spatial evolution of urban land use efficiency through kernel density estimation and spatial autocorrelation analysis. The results show that: (1) From 2003 to 2016, China's urban land use efficiency showed an overall fluctuating growth, but it remained at a low level. The mean value of urban land use efficiency has been gradually decreasing in east, west and central regions. (2) In the whole country and the eastern, central and western regions, the regional differences have been increasing, and the efficiency values of the whole country and the east have become polarized. (3) Urban land use efficiency shows a weak spatial positive correlation, but the degree of spatial agglomeration is increasing. High-high agglomeration areas are mostly distributed in the southeastern coastal areas, and extend into the central region, while most of the high-low polarized areas are the capital cities of the central and western regions. The low-high depressed areas are scattered around the high-value accumulation areas, some of which have turned into high-high agglomeration areas during the study period, while the low-low homogeneous areas are mainly distributed in the central, western and northeastern regions. Therefore, it is proposed that strengthening the utilization of urban stock land, strengthening the regional cooperation mechanism, and formulating policies which improve the efficiency of land use are effective ways to promote the intensive and economical use of urban land, as well as regional coordinated development.

Economic development, resource utilization, and environmental protection have always presented clear dilemmas for many countries at the national level. It is clear that the related concepts of eco-efficiency and the evaluation index can help in evaluating these associated issues. Thus, based on the use of undesirable output super Slacks-Based Measure models, this study evaluated the eco-efficiency of 30 Chinese provinces during the period between 2005 and 2016. This evaluation was conducted by analyzing the spatiotemporal dynamics and key factors influencing these changes using a panel regression model. The results of this analysis reveal that eco-efficiency gradually increased over the course of the study period, peaking at different levels among the regions. We used the conventional CV evolutionary method to show that inequalities in eco-efficiency gradually decreased at the national level. Indeed, our estimations of the factors affecting this variable suggest that industrial structure, degree of openness, urbanization, technical innovation, and environmental governance all exert significant positive influences, while energy consumption and traffic exert negative effects. The extent of the impacts of these factors on eco-efficiency varied between the different regions.

Using bibliometric methods, this paper analyzes the total amount and keyword composition among 910 studies in the field of farmland abandonment published in the Web of Science database from 1992 to 2019. According to the usage of keywords, existing studies are reviewed from the three aspects of monitoring and mapping, driving forces and influencing factors, and effects assessment and trade-off. The results show that: (1) At present, the extraction and mapping of abandoned farmland data mainly rely on household surveys and remote sensing technology, and combing NDVI time series with spatial information can provide abandoned farmland data with high precision. (2) The driving forces and influencing factors of cultivated land abandonment have been summarized in terms of extent, sources and attributes, respectively. Cultivated land marginalization is the fundamental driving force of cultivated land abandonment, labor migration is the direct driving force, and changes in socio-economic factors are the main driving forces. (3) The environmental effects of cultivated land abandonment are spatially heterogeneous, and temporal-spatial differences, the landscape environment, climate, cultivation and topographic features will all play decisive roles in shaping the ultimate environmental effects. Studies of trade-offs between the impacts of cultivated land abandonment mainly focus on ecosystem service function and value, while the role of spatial background is often ignored. Based on a systematic review of existing literature, this paper suggests that future efforts should carry out large-scale investigations on abandoned cultivated land at the national level, conduct multi-scale research on the driving forces of land abandonment, and conduct trade-off research on the effects of land abandonment based on national conditions.

Ecological land can provide people with ecological products and ecological services; and it plays an important role in maintaining the health and safety of the ecosystem. With China's rapid urbanization development, ecological land has been invaded in large quantities, and damaged seriously, even resulting in loses of its ecological function. Based on land use data from 1995 to 2015, our study explores the spatial and temporal evolution of the damage or recovery of ecological land in the Yangtze River Economic Belt (YREB). Two spatial models, geographic detector and geographic weighted regression (GWR), were employed to assess the global effects and the local effects of the driving factors for ecological land change, respectively. Our study divided the ecological land change into five types based on the degree of change as severe damage, slight damage, unchanged, slight recovery, and obvious recovery. The results show that from 1995 to 2015, the total area of ecological land in the YREB increased initially and then decreased, but the overall trend was decreasing. The total damaged area was larger than the recovered area. Arable land and woodland both showed downward trends. In terms of ecological land change over the past 20 years, the type of unchanged had the largest area, followed by slight damage and slight recovery. Our study further revealed that ecological land change was the net result of the interaction of many factors, and the explanatory power between any two driving factors was greater than that of any individual driving factor. In addition, driving factors have different impacts on ecological land change in different geographical locations. This knowledge should help land managers and policymakers to be better informed when developing pertinent land use policies at the regional and local levels. The lessons can also be extended to other regions for better management of their ecological land for sustainable use.

Landscape morphology can reflect the spatial behavior of land use. Using the Poyang Lake area as an example, the landscape pattern characteristics in 1995, 2000, 2015, and 2018 are determined by calculating the fractal dimension, fractal stability, patch density, patch shape fragmentation, and landscape isolation, and fractal theory is used to analyze the spatial behavior of land use. The results show that building land was the land use type which consistently had the highest fractal dimension, but the fractal dimension of building land shows a downward trend, indicating that the spatial form of building land gradually developed in an orderly direction under the action of land use spatial behavior. Paddy, dryland, and forested land were the land use types which always had the lowest fractal dimension, and they are in unstable states. The calculation results of patch density, patch shape fragmentation index, and landscape isolation index supported the conclusions of the fractal analysis. One recommendation for realizing the rational layout of the land is to reduce the fractal dimension of building land through scientific and reasonable planning and to guide the orderly development of building land. For natural landscapes such as forested land, shrub forest land, high-coverage grassland, and water area, their fractal dimensions should be increased to reduce human interference and maintain their stability. Finally, the results of this study suggest that the fractal dimension should be introduced into the National Spatial Planning, and used as an index for evaluating the rationality of the regional land use pattern.

Environmental and social problems caused by overfertilization, excessive pesticides, and encroachment on farmland are increasingly serious in agricultural settings, especially in suburban agricultural areas and highly intensive agricultural areas. Hence, modern agriculture not only pursues economic benefits, but it also pays more attention to ecological functions and social stability. This paper proposes a set of methods which are designed to realize optimal agricultural benefits and sustainable development by scientifically adjusting the land use structure. Taking Changsha County in South Central China as a case study, this paper first built an index system and adopted the information entropy-TOPSIS method to assess the economic, social, and ecological benefits of agricultural land use. Next, a coupled coordination model and an obstacle model were chosen to diagnose those factors that remained as obstacles to achieving the sustainable and coordinated development of the benefits of agricultural land use. Finally, based on the analysis of the changes in the benefits and obstacles over time, socio-economic and ecological constraints were established, and the multi-objective linear programming method (MOLP) was used to determine the comprehensive benefits and optimal land use structure. The results indicate that: (1) The agricultural benefits were stably increasing from 0.20 in 1996 to 0.79 in 2016. (2) The economic benefit index is no longer the main obstacle, while the social benefit index, which includes components such as the food security index, has become the principal influencing factor. (3) The optimal land use structure and comprehensive benefits were presented by taking into consideration the economic development, environmental protection, and social needs. This study emphasizes economic development, but it also seeks coordinated development with comprehensive benefits. The results of the study could provide scientific recommendations for optimizing the agricultural land use spatial patterns and sustainable land use.

The rural homestead is a major part of the rural land system, which is an important carrier of various rural issues such as rural decline, rural hollowing and others. Great changes have occurred in China's rural areas, while the rural homestead has also undergone transformation. Based on summarizing the multi-functional classification of homesteads from previous research, this study divided and defined the population bearing function, assets, and residential function of homesteads from the perspective of functional improvement according to the results of a survey questionnaire. Using Poyang County as the case study, this paper analyzed the functional transformation of rural homesteads through the model of coordinated transformation degree. The results demonstrated the following trends. (1) From 2000 to 2017, the transformation degrees of rural homestead functions in Poyang County have obviously improved overall. (2) The high value areas of the transformation degrees were mainly distributed in the northern hilly region and around Poyang Lake, while most of the low value areas were distributed in the plain areas near the county town. (3) In the regions with better location conditions and resource endowments, the basic conditions and trend of non-agriculturalization of the population, capital and other factors are more significant. According to the differentiation of rural homestead transformations which occurred in different regions, the government could put forward targeted development suggestions for the future.

The configuration of a multifunctional rural landscape is critical for its protection. Although studies on multifunctional rural landscapes have been conducted, there is a lack of information regarding the spatiotemporal characteristics and tradeoff/synergy relationships of rural landscape functions in the time series on the administrative unit scale. The purposes of this study were to (1) analyze the spatial-temporal distribution characteristics of the tradeoff and synergy from the perspective of multifunctionality for efficient use of rural landscape resources and (2) formulate regional sustainable development policies to minimize the conflict between people and nature. Aiming at the scientific representation of landscape function and the quantification of landscape multifunctional relationships, and by taking Qingpu District of Shanghai as an example, six kinds of rural landscape functions were constructed according to the functional framework of “productive function, living function and ecological function”. Based on the data for 1980 to 2018, the characteristics of variations of multifunctional tradeoff and synergy relationships of the rural landscape in 184 administrative villages were studied by the methods of Spearman rank correlation coefficient analysis and bivariate spatial autocorrelation. The following results were obtained. 1) The fine division of rural landscape function types was realistic and necessary for analyzing the regional multi-function relationships in the regions with rapid development. In the process of rapid urbanization, the rural landscape functions of urban suburban areas changed under the combined action of natural resource endowment, social and economic conditions and other internal and external factors. As a result, the agricultural production function could not replace the economic development function and become the function of rural landscape production. The research results of Qingpu District showed that the agricultural production function was no longer the primary functional form, yet the economic development function became the dominant function in this area. 2) Temporal and spatial analysis methods of rural landscape functions can accurately and comprehensively reflect the evolution of the characteristics of multifunction tradeoffs and synergies. According to the Spearman rank correlation analysis of the multifunction value of the rural landscape in the time dimension, the results masked the differences of resource and environment carrying capacity caused by the differences of regional landscape resource endowment in the spatial dimension. 3) The spatial and temporal differences of the multi-functional tradeoffs and synergies of the rural landscape in Qingpu District from 1980 to 2018 were significant. There was significant heterogeneity of tradeoffs and synergies between functions in the spatial pattern, with clustering characteristics. Meanwhile, as for the temporal pattern, the tradeoffs and synergies of functions changed differently in terms of Moran's I and the correlation coefficient. The results of this study can provide scientific references for urban-suburban-rural space reconstruction and regional sustainable development.

As a global issue, farmland abandonment is considered to be one of the most crucial fields in the study of land use change. The clarification of its driving factors plays a vital role in improving the efficiency of rural cultivated land use and ensuring national food security. This paper aims to study the factors influencing farmland abandonment in 49 villages of Ganzhou City by adopting the Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA). The results show that: (1) Farmland abandonment is the outcome of synergism among many factors, among which the low–level of agricultural mechanization is definitely a necessary condition in Ganzhou, and it contributes a material effect to the abandonment. (2) The path leading to farmland abandonment is not unique to the study area, and can be attributed to five different combinations. These combinations can be enumerated as: A1 (a combination of convenient transportation, complete agricultural facilities, low-level agricultural mechanization, low-level land circulation, and no industrial policy support), A2 (a combination of complete agricultural facilities, low-level agricultural mechanization, low-level land circulation, sufficient agricultural labor, and no industrial policy support), A3 (a combination of convenient transportation, complete agricultural facilities, low-level agricultural mechanization, sufficient agricultural labor, and no industrial policy support), A4 (a combination of convenient transportation, low-level agricultural mechanization, low-level land circulation, sufficient agricultural labor, and industrial policy support), and A5 (a combination of inconvenient transportation, complete agricultural facilities, low-level agricultural mechanization, high-level land circulation, sufficient agricultural labor, and industrial policy support). (3) In the above-mentioned combinations, the core conditions and peripheral conditions conjointly impact on farmland abandonment. Finally, corresponding policy implications are proposed in order to further reveal the mechanism of farmland abandonment. These recommendations provide new ideas and methods for policy makers to use in making decisions and will promote the effective use of farmland.

Poaceae species such as silver grass or reed are commonly used in traditional mulch farming in Japan, where the Nishi-Awa area is a Globally Important Agricultural Heritage Systems (GIAHS) site. Farmers here have traditionally used silver grass for mulch farming; furthermore, local farmers have learned from long-standing experience that Japanese knotweed (Fallopia japonica, Polygonaceae) is better for cultivation of solanaceous crops in this area. However, it is unclear why Japanese knotweed mulching is beneficial for cultivation of solanaceous crops. Thus, in this study, we hypothesized that Japanese knotweed mulching may be effective in avoiding hazards associated with continuous potato cropping, as native potato used to be cultivated twice a year in the past. Therefore, we investigated the effects of Japanese knotweed mulching on continuous potato cropping and after tomato cropping, which is another solanaceous crop species. Field experiments were conducted in 2018. First, we compared Japanese knotweed mulching, silver grass mulching and no grass mulching (control) in a soil under continuous potato cultivation and in an uncultivated soil. As a result, the extent of the potato yield decrease was reduced by Japanese knotweed mulching. Secondly, we compared Japanese knotweed-mulching and no grass mulching in a soil after a tomato crop and in an uncultivated soil. The extent of decrease in potato growth and yield was also reduced by Japanese knotweed mulching. These findings indicate that mulching with Japanese knotweed helped to avoid the risks associated with continuous potato cropping.

The unreasonable utilization and trade-offs of the multifunctional landscape is one of the important causes leading to ecological risk. Quantifying the relationship, heterogeneous process and driving mechanism between landscape function and human well-being can provide a scientific basis for achieving a win-win situation of regional development and ecological protection, and it is also an important issue for relevant scientific research. In this paper, we reviewed the current state of knowledge regarding landscape function and ecological risk, identified the feedback mechanisms among landscape change, landscape function, human well-being and ecological risk, constructed the ecological risk assessment framework based on landscape functions, and sorted out the key scientific issues and research trends. The interconnections between the multifunctional landscape, human well-being, and ecological risk comprise an important scientific issue in ecological risk assessment. However, there is a lack of understanding of the spatial-temporal characteristics of landscape function trade-offs, and there is also a lack of systematic and standardized methods for the identification and comprehensive evaluation of landscape functions. Exploring ecological risk management and the methodologies that integrate the two processes of nature and humanity is an inevitable trend for future research. Coupling landscape structure, function and process into ecological risk assessment, as well as focusing on the combination of human well-being, landscape function trade-off and ecological risk control policy design are important issues to be studied.

Mountain area accounts for a high proportion of the land area in China, and it is the focal area to solve the contradiction of imbalanced regional development, as well as an important source of ecosystem services. Therefore, this area has been facing long-term pressure and challenges in economic development and ecological protection. In this paper, we selected a rocky desertification mountain area, an active mountain area of new tectonic movement and a typical northern earth-rock mountain area, as Qian-Gui karst Mountain area, Hengduan Mountain area and Taihang Mountain area, as examples to represent three main types of mountain areas. Three representative types of ecosystem services, including NPP (Net Primary Productivity) as a support service, water conservation as a regulation service, and agricultural produce as a supply service, were incorporated into this study. Linear regression, correlation analysis and other methods were then used to investigate the spatial-temporal characteristics of the trade-offs and synergies in each of the three kinds of mountain areas during 1990-2015 in China. The analysis yielded three main conclusions for the three mountainous areas. (1) The agricultural produce supply service decreased relatively, while the support and regulation services of NPP and hydrological regulation increased significantly. (2) There was a synergistic relationship between NPP and the hydrological regulation services in the three mountainous areas. The synergistic relation in Qian-Gui karst Mountain area became enhanced, while those in Hengduan and Taihang Mountain areas became weakened, and the former was weakened to a greater extent. There was a trade-off between NPP, the hydrological regulation service and the agricultural produce supply service among the three mountainous areas. In particular, the trade-off between NPP and the agricultural produce supply service in Qian-Gui karst Mountain area became weaker, while those in Hengduan and Taihang Mountain areas were enhanced, and the latter was enhanced to a greater degree. (3) Significant spatial differentiation was evident in the trade-offs and synergies of ecosystem services among the three mountain areas.

Maintaining an adequate security level of cultivated land is essential for the healthy and sustainable survival of China's large and growing population. We constructed a cultivated land security evaluation index system, combined with an improved TOPSIS method by taking into account the balance and stability of quantitative, qualitative, and ecological security. We applied this improved method to an evaluation of the state of cultivated land security and analyzed its spatiotemporal variation in Yingtan City (Jiangxi Province, China) from 1995 to 2015. The drivers of the changes in cultivated land security were investigated via a spatial regression model, which can eliminate the effect of spatial autocorrelation. The results showed that cultivated land security decreased rapidly from 1995 to 2005, although it tended to rise slowly in the subsequent period from 2005 to 2015. Areas deemed to be in a highly dangerous state were mainly distributed in the Yuehu District, while those that were secure appeared primarily in the southern mountainous area, with the area in a generally dangerous state extending to the west in the same direction as urban development. Among the examined drivers, social-economic factors and policy factors significantly influenced the cultivated land security. Our work suggests that government managers should take appropriate measures to improve cultivated land security according to its spatiotemporal variations and the underpinning drivers in this region.

Understanding the synergic relationship between the Grain for Green Program (GGP) and the agricultural eco-economic system is important for designing an optimized agricultural eco-economic system and developing a highly efficient structure of an agricultural industry chain and a resource chain. This study used Ansai County time series data from 1995 to 2014, applied vector autoregressive (VAR) models and used tools such as Granger causality, impulse response analysis and variance decomposition, to explore the synergy between the GGP and the agricultural eco-economic system. The results revealed a synergic and reciprocal relationship between the GGP and the agroeconomic system. The contribution of the GGP to the agroecosystem reached 34%, which was significantly higher than either its largest contribution to the agroeconomic system (20.8%) or its peak contribution to the agrosocial system (26.7%). The agroeconomic system had the most prominent influence on the GGP, with a year-round stable contribution of up to 55.3%. These results were consistent with reality. However, the impact of the GGP on the agricultural eco-economic system was weaker than the effect of the agricultural eco-economic system on the GGP. The lag of variable stationarity after the shock was relatively short, indicating that optimal coupling had not formed between the GGP and the agricultural eco-economic system. On the basis of enhancing the ecological functions, we should construct the agricultural industry-resource chain such that it focuses on promoting the effective utilization of resources in the region. In addition, the development of a carbon sink industry can be used to manifest the ecological values of ecological functions.