Sustainability, Vol. 11, Pages 6794: Spatiotemporal Decoupling of Population, Economy and Construction Land Changes in Hebei Province (Sustainability)

Under the context of rapid urbanization, how to use construction land resources under the dual pressure of socioeconomic growth and cultivated land protection is critical to resource utilization and sustainable development. Thus, it is of great theoretical and practical significance to study the relationship between socioeconomic change and construction land expansion. Based on decoupling theory, this study constructed a two-dimensional model to analyze the population-construction land and economy (non-agricultural GDP)-construction land decoupling status and characteristics in Hebei Province at the county level. Then, a decoupling-based construction land-use zoning model was built to explore construction land saving and intensive utilization strategies in different construction land-use zones. The results show that (1) the construction land area, population and non-agricultural GDP in Hebei Province increased in the study period, but there were spatial differences in the hot areas of growth. (2) In the population-construction land dimension, the growth of the population and construction land in Hebei Province was generally in an uncoordinated state. According to the results of the calculation, the samples of counties whose relationships between population and construction land were uncoordinated accounted for 75.76% of all counties, and 68.94% of all counties demonstrated weak decoupling. (3) In the economy-construction land dimension, 89.39% of all counties in Hebei Province had coordinated relationships between economy and construction land change. The expansion negative decoupling was the main decoupling state in Hebei Province in this dimension. (4) On the basis of two-dimensional decoupling type results, the construction land-use in Hebei was divided into four zones: “Population–economy dual coordinated”, “population unilateral coordinated”, “economy unilateral coordinated” and “population–economy dual uncoordinated”. The results showed that the “economy unilateral coordinated” zone included 68.18% of all counties. According to the characteristics of different construction land-use zones, this study provided various regulatory and control countermeasures and suggestions to improve the efficiency of construction land-use and to promote sustainable development in Hebei Province.