Building in or out? Examining urban expansion patterns and land use efficiency across the global sample of 466 cities with million+ inhabitants

The analysis of urban land expansion and farmland loss is essential to adequately understand the land use change in a rapidly urbanizing China. We found that both urban expansion and farmland loss in Beijing experienced high- and low-speed stages and their spatial patterns were consistent during the past 35 years as most of the newly expanded urban land was converted from farmland. The area of farmland loss by urban expansion in Beijing is 12.6 km2/year, 39.86 km2/year, 23.38 km2/year, and 41.11 km2/year during the period of 1980–1990, 1990–2000, 2000–2010, and 2010–2015, respectively. The urban expansion in Beijing continuously preferred to consume “above average” quality farmland during 1980–2015. Meanwhile, although the urban expansion in Beijing was highly dependent on occupying farmland, the dependence of urban expansion on farmland consumption has declined over time. However, the contribution of urban expansion on farmland loss increased during 1980–2010 and decreased afterward. In order to protect the farmland from urban expansion, we call for more effort to improve the urban land use efficiency with rigid controls over areas of urban expansion.

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Big Data Supported the Identification of Urban Land Efficiency in Eurasia by Indicator SDG 11.3.1

ISPRS International Journal of Geo-Information ◽

10.3390/ijgi10020064 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 10 (2) ◽

pp. 64

Author(s):

Chaopeng Li ◽

Guoyin Cai ◽

Mingyi Du

Keyword(s):

Land Use ◽

Sustainable Development ◽

Population Growth ◽

Urban Expansion ◽

Urban Land ◽

Urban Land Use ◽

Land Supply ◽

Large Cities ◽

Land Use Efficiency ◽

Use Efficiency

Indicator 11.3.1 of the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDG 11.3.1) was designed to test land-use efficiency, which was defined as the ratio of the land consumption rate (LCR) to the population growth rate (PGR), namely, LCRPGR. This study calculates the PGRs, LCRs, and LCRPGRs for 333 cities from 1990–2000 and 391 cities from 2000–2015 in four geographical divisions in Eurasia according to the method given by UN metadata. The results indicate that Europe and Japan have the lowest PGR and LCR, indicating that this region’s level of urbanization is the highest. South and Central Asia have the lowest values of LCRPGR, indicating relatively lower urban land supply during the measurement periods. Compared with the mean LCRPGR in a region, the average values from SDG 11.3.1 by different types of cities in a region can have more guiding significance for urban sustainable development. While paying attention to the urban land-use efficiency of mega and extra-large cities, more attention should be paid to the coordination relationship between urban land supply and population growth in large, medium, and small cities. Additionally, the method from UN metadata works well for most urban expansion cities but is not suitable for cities with small changes in urban populations.

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Urban Land-Use Efficiency Analysis by Integrating LCRPGR and Additional Indicators

Sustainability ◽

10.3390/su132413518 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 13 (24) ◽

pp. 13518

Author(s):

Chaopeng Li ◽

Guoyin Cai ◽

Zhongchang Sun

Keyword(s):

Land Use ◽

Population Growth ◽

Urban Areas ◽

Urban Expansion ◽

Urban Land ◽

Urban Land Use ◽

Land Use Efficiency ◽

Use Efficiency ◽

Land Consumption ◽

The Relationship

Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) target 11.3 is to enhance inclusive and sustainable urbanisation and capacity for participatory, integrated, and sustainable human settlement planning and management in all countries by 2030. Within that goal, the indicator SDG 11.3.1 is defined as the ratio of land consumption rate to population growth rate (LCRPGR). This ratio is primarily used to measure urban land-use efficiency and reveal the relationship between urban land consumption and population growth. The LCRPGR indicator is aimed at representing overall urban land-use efficiency. This study added compactness, urban expansion speed, and urban expansion intensity to better reflect the impact of built-up area changes on the overall urban land-use efficiency. In addition, this study combined LCRPGR and the land consumption per capita rate (LCPC) to comprehensively analyse the relationship between land consumption and population growth in existing built urban areas, expanded built urban areas, and total built areas. This study employed three years of urban built-up and population data for 2010, 2015, and 2020 for 338 cities along the Belt and Road region to analyse land-use efficiency. The results show that the average LCRPGR for the period 2010–2015 was 1.01, which is close to the recommended ideal LCRPGR value of 1.0 in the United Nations Human Settlements Programme. For 2015–2020, the LCRPGR was 0.71, indicating that the overall urban land consumption in the study area decreased. This is also supported by the fact that the urban expansion intensity in 2020 was weaker than that in 2015. In addition, according to research on the tendency of changes in the entire urban built-up area, the smaller the urban population, the slower the urban expansion speed, the smaller the compactness, and the increasingly complex the urban borders. In cities where the overall LCRPGR is far from the ideal value of 1, the entire built-up area is divided into existing and expanded urban regions. It was found that the average LCPC value in expanded built-up areas was higher than that of existing built-up areas, showing that as cities developed, the LCPC of the newly developed urban areas was greater than that of existing built-up areas. Meanwhile, the LCPC in the expanded built-up areas showed a decreasing trend over time from 2010 to 2015 to 2020, indicating that land use in the expanded built-up regions tended to be efficient. These findings provide helpful information in decision making for balancing urban land consumption with population growth.

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How land transfer affects agricultural land use efficiency: Evidence from China’s agricultural sector

Land Use Policy ◽

10.1016/j.landusepol.2021.105300 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 103 ◽

pp. 105300 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Rilong Fei ◽

Ziyi Lin ◽

Joseph Chunga

Keyword(s):

Land Use ◽

Agricultural Sector ◽

Agricultural Land ◽

Agricultural Land Use ◽

Land Use Efficiency ◽

Land Transfer ◽

Use Efficiency

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Assessment and Spatial-Temporal Evolution Analysis of Urban Land Use Efficiency under Green Development Orientation: Case of the Yangtze River Delta Urban Agglomerations

Land ◽

10.3390/land10070715 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 10 (7) ◽

pp. 715

Author(s):

Yingkai Tang ◽

Kun Wang ◽

Xuanming Ji ◽

He Xu ◽

Yangqing Xiao

Keyword(s):

Land Use ◽

Urban Development ◽

Evaluation System ◽

Yangtze River Delta ◽

Urban Land ◽

Urban Land Use ◽

Land Use Efficiency ◽

Green Development ◽

Use Efficiency ◽

Development Orientation

Rapid urbanization has provided a strong impetus for the economic growth of China, but it has also caused many problems such as inefficient urban land use and environmental pollution. With the popularization of the concept of green and sustainable development, the Environmental-Social-Governance (ESG) assessment concept is widely accepted. The government and residents are paying more and more attention to environmental issues in urban development, and environmental protection has formed an important part of urban development. In this context, this study takes 26 cities in the Yangtze River Delta as examples to build an evaluation system for urban land-use efficiency under green development orientation. The evaluation system takes into account the inputs of land, capital, labor, and energy factors in the process of urban development. Based on emphasizing economic output, the social benefits and undesired outputs brought about by urban development are taken into account. This paper measures urban land use efficiency by the super-efficiency SBM model, and on this basis, analyses the spatial-temporal evolution characteristics of urban land-use efficiency. Further, this paper measures urban land use efficiency without considering undesired outputs and compares the two evaluation methods. Again, the comparison illustrates the rationality of urban land use efficiency evaluation system under green development orientation.

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Does the Construction and Operation of High-Speed Rail Improve Urban Land Use Efficiency? Evidence from China

Land ◽

10.3390/land10030303 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 10 (3) ◽

pp. 303

Author(s):

Xinhai Lu ◽

Yifeng Tang ◽

Shangan Ke

Keyword(s):

Economic Growth ◽

Land Use ◽

High Speed ◽

Urban Land ◽

Urban Land Use ◽

Western China ◽

High Speed Rail ◽

Land Use Efficiency ◽

Use Efficiency ◽

The Impact

The construction and operation of high-speed rail (HSR) has become an important policy for China to achieve efficiency and fairness and promote high-quality economic growth. HSR promotes the flow of production factors such as labor and capital and affects economic growth, and may further affect urban land use efficiency (ULUE). To explore the impact of HSR on ULUE, this paper uses panel data of 284 cities in China from 2005 to 2018, and constructs Propensity Score Matching-Differences in Differences model to evaluate the effect of HSR on ULUE. The result of entire China demonstrates that the HSR could significantly improves the ULUE. Meanwhile, this paper also considers the heterogeneity of results caused by geographic location, urban levels and scales. It demonstrates that the HSR has a significantly positive effect on ULUE of Eastern, Central China, and large-sized cities. However, in Western China, in medium-sized, and small-sized cities, the impact of HSR on ULUE is not significant. This paper concludes that construction and operation of HSR should be linked to urban development planning and land use planning. Meanwhile, the cities with different geographical locations and scales should take advantage of HSR to improve ULUE and promote urban coordinated development.

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Does Smart City Construction Improve the Green Utilization Efficiency of Urban Land?

Land ◽

10.3390/land10060657 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 10 (6) ◽

pp. 657

Author(s):

Aiping Wang ◽

Weifen Lin ◽

Bei Liu ◽

Hui Wang ◽

Hong Xu

Keyword(s):

Land Use ◽

Urban Development ◽

Financial Development ◽

Smart City ◽

Urban Land ◽

Utilization Efficiency ◽

Land Use Efficiency ◽

Use Efficiency ◽

City Construction ◽

Green Land

Frontier research primarily focuses on the effect of urban development models on land use efficiency, while ignoring the effect of new-type urban development on the green land use efficiency. Accordingly, this paper employs a super efficiency slacks-based measure (super-SBM) model with undesirable outputs to measure the green land use efficiency based on panel data from 152 prefecture-level cities for the period 2004–2017. We construct a difference-in-differences (DID) model in this paper to test the impact of smart city construction on the green utilization efficiency of urban land and its transmission mechanism. The results showed that: (1) The smart city construction significantly improved the green utilization efficiency of urban land, increasing the general efficiency by 15%. (2) There is significant city-size heterogeneity in the effect of smart city construction on improving green utilization efficiency of urban land. The policy effect is more obvious in mega cities and above than in very-large-sized cities. (3) The city-feature heterogeneity results reveal that, in cities with a higher level of human capital, financial development, and information infrastructure, the effectiveness of smart city construction in improving the green utilization efficiency of urban land are more obvious, and in cities with a higher level of financial development, the effects of the urban policy were more optimal. (4) The smart city construction promotes the green utilization efficiency of urban land through by the information industry development and the regional innovation capabilities.

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A Novel Efficiency Measure Model for Industrial Land Use Based on Subvector Data Envelope Analysis and Spatial Analysis Method

Complexity ◽

10.1155/2017/9516267 ◽

2017 ◽

Vol 2017 ◽

pp. 1-11 ◽

Cited By ~ 6

Author(s):

Wei Chen ◽

Rui He ◽

Qun Wu

Keyword(s):

Land Use ◽

Spatial Analysis ◽

Spatial Autocorrelation ◽

Industrial Development ◽

Efficiency Measure ◽

Industrial Land ◽

Envelope Analysis ◽

Land Use Efficiency ◽

Industrial Land Use ◽

Use Efficiency

With the rapid and unbalanced development of industry, a large amount of cultivated land is converted into industrial land with lower efficiency. The existing research is extensively concerned with industrial land use and industrial development in isolation, but little attention has been paid to the relationship between them. To help address this gap, the paper creates a new efficiency measure method for industrial land use combining Subvector Data Envelope Analysis (DEA) with spatial analysis approach. The proposed model has been verified by using the industrial land use data of 30 Chinese provinces from 2001 to 2013. The spatial autocorrelation relationship between industrial development and industrial land use efficiency is explored. Furthermore, this paper examines the effects of industrial development on industrial land use efficiency by spatial panel data model. The results indicate that the industrial land use efficiency and the industrial development level in the provinces of eastern region are higher than those of the western region. The spatial distribution of industrial land use efficiency shows remarkable positive spatial autocorrelation. However, the level of industrial development has obvious negative spatial autocorrelation since 2009. The improvement of industrial development has a significant positive impact on the industrial land use efficiency.

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