New technical framework for assessing the spatial pattern of land development in Yunnan Province, China: A “production-life-ecology” perspective

Abstract With the global accelerated pace of industrialization and urbanization, the state of disorder in land development has become the primary problem affecting sustainable and coordinated development in China. This study proposes a new technical framework to support the assessment of the spatial pattern of land development from a “production-life-ecology” perspective. The objective of our study was to develop a comprehensive assessment methodology by clarifying the functions of land and establishing a comprehensive index system that includes a total of 29 indicators. This framework can produce realistic and reliable patterns of land development because it synthetically takes formative environmental, social, and economic indicators into account while also considering the impact of human behaviors such as travel flow and economic flow on spatial land patterns. This research conducts a case study on the spatial pattern of land development in Yunnan Province of China in 2015, finding that the land development occurs in a scattered production-function pattern of one core, five groups, and coupled pairs of urban collaboration, a polycentric life-function pattern represented by radial concentric-ringed zones, and an aggregated ecology-function pattern with high values in the west and low values in the east. The proposed technical framework of pattern assessment can provide an effective reference for governments to improve the planning and development of land resources.