Land-use change is an important contributor to atmospheric carbon emissions. Taking Jinhua city in eastern China as an example, this study analyzed the effects on carbon emissions by land-use changes from 2005 to 2018. Then, carbon emissions that will be produced in Jinhua in 2030 were predicted based on the land-use pattern predicted by the CA-Markov model. Finally, a low-carbon optimized land-use pattern more consistent with the law of urban development was proposed based on the prediction and planning model used in this study. The results show that (1) from 2005 to 2018, the area of land used for construction in Jinhua continued to increase, while woodland and cultivated land areas decreased. Carbon emissions from land use rose at a high rate. By 2018, carbon emissions had increased by 1.9 times compared to 2015. (2) During the 2010–2015 period, the total concentration of carbon emissions decreased due to decreases in both the rate of growth in construction land and the rate of decline in a woodland area, as well as an adjustment of the energy structure and the use of polluting fertilizer and pesticide treatments. (3) The carbon emissions produced with an optimal land-use pattern in 2030 are predicted to reduce by 19%. The acreage of woodland in Jinhua’s middle basin occupied by construction land and cultivated land is predicted to reduce. The additional construction land will be concentrated around the main axis of the Jinhua-Yiwu metropolitan area and will exhibit a characteristic ribbon-form with more distinct clusters. The optimized land-use pattern is more conducive to carbon reduction and more in line with the strategy of regional development in the study area. The results of this study can be used as technical support to optimize the land-use spatial pattern and reduce urban land’s contribution to carbon emissions.

Production–living–ecological space (PLES) is the main body of the optimization of the development and protection pattern of territorial space, and the spatial conflict in PLES reflects a struggle for ecological protection and socio-economic development in the process of spatial development and utilization. The Yellow River Basin is one of the most concentrated and prominent areas of spatial conflict of PLES in China. Therefore, clarifying the spatio-temporal pattern of PLES of the region and scientifically identifying the characteristics of its spatial conflict will significantly improve the efficiency of comprehensive utilization of spatial resources, promote the integrated and orderly development of resource elements in the basin, and eventually achieve the strategic goals of ecological protection and high-quality development of the Yellow River Basin. In this research, the CA–Markov model was applied to simulate the spatio-temporal pattern of PLES in the Yellow River Basin from 2010 to 2025, and the landscape ecology method was adopted to construct the spatial conflict of the PLES measurement model for identifying the spatio-temporal trends of conflicts and their intensity. The results reveal that, from 2010 to 2025, ecological–production space (EPS) dominates the PLES in the Yellow River Basin, as its total area remains stable amid fluctuations; living–production space (LPS) shows the most notable change, as it grows yearly along with urbanization and industrialization process of the region; the transition between ecological–production space (EPS) and production–ecological space (PES) is the most frequent, and the two also account for the largest area. Spatial conflict of PLES in the Yellow River Basin is mainly reflected in the encroachment of LPS on other PLES, concentrated in the regions from Hekou Town to the left bank of Longmen, Fen River, Shizuishan to the southern bank of Hekou Town, and Daxia River and Tao River in the Yellow River Basin. From 2010 to 2025, the space conflict composite index of PLES (SCCI) of most regions in the basin lies within 0.7, which is a stable or basically controllable level. Among the 29 tertiary water resource divisions in the Yellow River Basin, the SCCI of 15 indicate a major, decreasing trend.

Greenhouse gas emissions, mainly CO2, lead to global climate change, and the resulting ecological environment problems bring severe challenges to human survival and development. As the world’s largest developing country and carbon emitter, China is facing the dual pressure of socio-economic development and carbon emission reduction. In order to cope with global climate change and achieve the goal of carbon neutrality and carbon peak as soon as possible, China needs to accelerate the optimization of energy structure, gradually increase the proportion of renewable energy utilization, and accelerate the solution of the bottleneck problem of renewable energy storage. As an energy basin, the Yellow River basin is a key demonstration area to promote energy system reform in China. There are a large number of abandoned mines in the Yellow River basin, which provide a new idea to build pumped storage power stations using abandoned mines (PSPSuM) for renewable energy storage. From the perspective of multidisciplinary integration, this study deeply discusses the relevant evaluation principles and technical key points of constructing PSPSuM in the region, and preliminarily carries out the feasibility assessment. The results show that 91 PSPSuM can be built in the Yellow River basin, with a total installed capacity of 15,830 MW, comprehensively considering the aspects of spatial size, spatial structure and space stability.