Land Comprehensive Carrying Capacity of Major Grain-Producing Areas in Northeast China: Spatial–Temporal Evolution, Obstacle Factors and Regulatory Policies

Abstract

Major grain-producing areas in Northeast China serve as a significant national commodity in their role as grain bases. In order to achieve sustainable land use in such areas and ensure national food security, it is critical to understand the spatial–temporal evolution features of the land comprehensive carrying capacity of such areas, ascertain major obstacle factors and propose regulatory policies for effectively improving the land comprehensive carrying capacity. In this paper, a TOPSIS model based on grey relational entropy weight is developed to analyze the spatial–temporal evolution features of the land comprehensive carrying capacity of major grain-producing areas in Northeast China from 2000 to 2020, and an obstacle degree model is employed to determine the main obstacles to improving the land comprehensive carrying capacity of major grain-producing areas in Northeast China. The study results show the following: (1) The land comprehensive carrying capacity of major grain-producing areas in Northeast China is at a low level, showing an N-shaped trendline, and its spatial–temporal evolution features are subject to changes in land food carrying capacity, land economic carrying capacity and land ecological carrying capacity.(2) The main obstacle factors for improving the land comprehensive carrying capacity of major grain-producing areas in Northeast China are urbanization rate, gross industrial output per hectare and industrial solid waste emission per hectare. Cultivated land area per capita, grain output per hectare and industrial wastewater discharge per hectare have recently become obstacle factors for the land comprehensive carrying capacity of the study areas. Based on these results, the paper proposes regulatory strategies for stabilizing agricultural population transfer to avoid its reversal, exploring the optimization and upgrading of secondary sector structures to promote a low-carbon transition to green industries, and implementing cultivated land protection policies to steadily boost cultivated land grain productivity, with a view to increasing the land comprehensive carrying capacity of major grain-producing areas in Northeast China. The findings of this study act as a scientific reference for enhancing the land comprehensive carrying capacity of major grain-producing areas in Northeast China, which is crucial for ensuring national food security.

Assessing Land Resource Carrying Capacity in China’s Main Grain-Producing Areas: Spatial–Temporal Evolution, Coupling Coordination, and Obstacle Factors

“…GDP growth rate, GDP per capita, and share of tertiary industry could be used to measure economic development [43][44][45][46]. In addition, according to Gao et al (2022) and Fan et al (2023), the value of agricultural output per capita, livestock and poultry population per capita, and value of industrial output per capita could reflect the unique economic characteristics of an MGPA [44,47].…”

“…Agricultural activities in an MGPA impose pressure on land resources, the application of chemical fertilizers, pesticides, plastic film, and emissions of livestock and poultry manure per unit area of arable land could be used to assess agricultural pollution [43,44,46,49,50]. According to Luo et al (2020) and Gao et al (2022), pressure on land resources caused by industry in the MGPAs could be assessed through chemical oxygen demand emissions in industrial wastewater per unit area of land and industrial solid waste emissions per unit area of land, reflecting industrial pollution [20,47].…”

“…When viewed from a spatial dimension, the overall spatial distribution of LRCC in the MGPAs displays a characteristic pattern of "higher in the south, lower in the north". The evaluation of LRCC requires a comprehensive examination that takes into account the supply capacity of land resources as well as the pressure generated by human activities [47,72,86]. Provinces with a surplus of LRCC tend to be concentrated in the less densely populated northern regions, such as Heilongjiang and Liaoning.…”

“…Indicators of the state subsystem and pressure subsystem, as direct reflections of the ecological environment of land resources, have become the primary obstacles affecting LRCC, especially with the accelerated urbanization process. Therefore, in the context of the new economic normal, if MGPAs aim to enhance LRCC, they should focus on the pressure and state subsystems, adopt more scientifically rational land planning, increase efforts in environmental protection, alleviate pressure on land resources, and improve the state of land resources [47,72,91].…”

Using Knowledge Granularity Entropy to Measure Eco-Environmental Impacts of Land Cover Changes in ASEAN from 2001 to 2020

“…In recent years, scholars have analyzed the ecological effects of land from different perspectives and carried out numerous comprehensive studies. These studies include land ecological carrying capacity [13][14][15], land ecological security [16,17], land ecological restoration [18][19][20], land ecosystem services [21][22][23], and land ecological management [24,25]. Although land ecology has many dynamic feedbacks and processes of change, it also exhibits some regularity [26].…”