Landscape ecological risk can be attributed to the cumulative effect of long-term disturbance in the regional landscapes by various risk sources. Fortunately, zoning control strategy can be expected to optimize the regional ecological risk using the dynamic perspective of the "history-present-tuture" of risk occurrence. This study aims to scientifically understand the spatial differentiation pattern of landscape ecological risks, and then formulate spatial zoning management and control strategies. A systematic investigation was also made on the dynamic risk management and control needs of rapidly urbanized areas. The new framework was established for the landscape ecological risk assessment and management zoning from the spatiotemporal dynamic perspective of "history-present-tuture". Taking the Jiangyin City of Jiangsu Province as the research area, the differentiated management and control strategy of risks was proposed to explore the spatiotemporal process, evolution characteristics, and future trends of landscape ecological risk. The combination characteristics of landscape risk levels were obtained from the coupling perspective of "history-present-tuture". The results showed that: 1) The cultivated land decreased by 12.76% from 2005 to 2020, whereas the construction land increased by 13.53% with the evolution of urbanization. There was a drastic transformation of landscape types, where the landscape fragmentation continued to increase. Among them, there was the more serious conversion of cultivated and ecological land into construction land. The fragmentation and uneven distribution were found in the landscape of cultivated and ecological land, with a significant trend in the agglomeration distribution of construction land. 2) The ecological risk presented a spatial distribution pattern of "low in the north and high in the south". The low-risk areas were distributed in the northern waters and the core area of township construction land, whereas, the high-risk areas were distributed in the southern waters, along the river, and the marginal area of township construction land expansion. Therefore, Jiangyin City was focused mainly on the expansion of construction land in the process of rapid urbanization. The high intensity and scattered construction caused the fragmentation landscape of cultivated and forest land, indicating the high risk. 3) The landscape ecological risks were categorized as the maintenance, upgrading, mitigation, and fluctuation types, according to the dynamic process of risks. The proportion of risk maintenance type was the highest, followed by upgrading and easing types, while the fluctuation type shared the lowest proportion. Furthermore, the control needs and trends of risks were further analyzed in the different regions to determine the specific prevention areas, according to the current situation and future trends of risks. There were also significant variations in the urgency of risk prevention for the management and control in different regions. Among them, much attention should be paid to the high-risk areas with serious out-of-control or a basic level of control. In summary, the risk assessment and management framework with the perspective of a "history-present-tuture" landscape is beneficial to understanding the complex interaction between landscape and external disturbances in the urbanized areas from the dynamic process of time and space. The findings can also provide the decision support for the urban ecological risk management for the optimization of regional territorial spatial layout.

Multiple goals are often required to balance the agricultural productivity for the food supply and the minimum resource input into the environmental damage in the ecological system services. Agricultural eco-efficiency has been used to evaluate the economic and ecological benefits for the better production performance. In this study, an assessment system was established to explore the spatial and temporal development of agricultural eco-efficiency. The panel data was collected from 678 towns in northern Jiangsu Province of China from 2000 to 2020. A data envelopment model was also used to assess the agricultural eco-efficiency using relaxation value measurement. In addition, the spatiotemporal evolution and regional differences of agricultural eco-efficiency were systematically investigated using global- and local-spatial autocorrelation analysis. Finally, the geographical detector model was selected to identify the influence of the component indicators on the spatial pattern of agricultural eco-efficiency. The results showed that: 1) The agricultural eco-efficiency shared a wave-like trend of "rise, fall, and rise". There was the great variation in the agricultural eco-efficiency in each urban area over the time. The descending order was ranked in Huai'an City>Yancheng City>northern Jiangsu Province>Lianyungang City>Suqian City>Xuzhou City. Among them, the maximum increase of agricultural eco-efficiency was found in Yancheng City, with an increase of 22.77%. By contrast, Suqian City decreased from 0.46 in 2000 to 0.35 in 2020, whereas, Huai'an City was basically the same from 2000 to 2020. The number of townships was 78, 98, 67, 57, and 88, respectively, with the high agricultural eco-efficiency (>0.81-1.0) in the study area. The townships with the high agricultural eco-efficiency were accounted for only 12.98% of the total in 2020, indicating the great potential to the improvement. 2) The overall agricultural eco-efficiency showed a spatial pattern of "high in the south and low in the north". The high-quality areas were small and scattered with a tendency to expand along the south-west to the north-east. By contrast, the low-quality areas were concentrated in Xuzhou, Suqian, and Lianyungang City. A clear pattern of agglomeration was observed with the low-low clustering region (23.89%-25.22%) in Xuzhou City, Ganyu County in the northern area of Lianyungang City, and Shuyang County in the northern of Suqian City, indicating the high spatial aggregation. The high-high clustering region (14.9%-24.34%) was shifted from the areas, such as Xuyi County in the north and south-west of Huai'an City to Yancheng City. 3) Energy inputs, pesticide inputs, and agricultural carbon emissions were the dominant factors in the spatial differentiation of agricultural eco-efficiency. The second most important factors were determined as the fertilizer inputs, agricultural film inputs, agricultural non-point source pollution, machinery inputs, and labor inputs in the spatial pattern of agricultural eco-efficiency. There was the different increase in the q-values for the interactions of each indicator. Two factors were also combined to strengthen the influence on the agricultural eco-efficiency. The type of interaction was also the non-linear strengthening (73%). Therefore, the agricultural carbon emissions, energy and machinery inputs were the common dominant factors using the factor detector. The weaker influence was found from the grain yield and ecosystem service function using factor detector. Anyway, the synergistic effects of various factors can be expected to achieved the optimal output on the spatial pattern of agricultural eco-efficiency. The finding can also provide a better guidance for the decision-making on the agricultural eco-efficiency in the environmentally friendly development of regional agriculture.

Territorial spatial functional zoning is one of the most fundamental components to shape the sustainable development–protection patterns for the high efficiency of the land and resource use. However, the conventional zoning approaches rely largely on the identification of the functional similarity or dominant land-use attributes. It is still lacking in the systematic integration of the multiple objectives, such as ecological conservation, agricultural production, and urban development. Moreover, it is very necessary to consider the cost–benefit trade-offs in the spatial zoning decisions. Especially, the effectiveness and operability of the zoning is often required in regions with intense land-use conflicts. In this study, a theoretical framework was developed for the territorial spatial functional zoning using a “goal–cost–benefit” collaborative optimization logic, according to the systematic conservation planning. The better balance coordinated the protection targets, land-use costs, and functional benefits within a unified spatial optimization. A combination of the suitability assessment, landscape pattern index analysis, and zoning optimization (Marxan with Zones) was employed to integrate the land-use survey data, NDVI-derived vegetation, point-of-interest (POI) datasets, and the socio-environmental indicators. The zoning system consisted of both dominant functional zones—including the ecological conservation, urban construction, and intensive agricultural production zones—and mixed-function zones, such as the agroforestry mixed, peri-urban agricultural, ecological recreation, and multifunctional composite zones. The hierarchical and flexible structure was represented for both single-function priorities and multifunctional land-use demands. Jiangyin City, a highly urbanized area with pronounced conflicts among ecological protection, agricultural production, and urban expansion, was selected as the empirical case in order to test the applicability of the framework. The results indicate that the optimal zoning substantially enhanced the ecological representativeness and conservation effectiveness. The protection proportions of the key ecosystem types, including the arbor forests and shrublands, increased to above 30%, indicating a significant improvement compared with the existing planning schemes. At the same time, the agricultural and urban development spaces were achieved through moderate expansion under ecological protection. The areas of the permanent prime farmland and urban development both increased, compared with the current plan. While the rise in the unit-area cost was controlled within 10%, indicating the strong overall cost-effectiveness and feasibility. The optimal zoning scheme also exhibited higher aggregation and coordination from a spatial structural perspective. The aggregation index of the intensive agricultural zone increased from 71.21 to 88.5, indicating a more compact and efficient land-use configuration. Importantly, the mixed-function zones introduced the effective transition buffers between strictly protected areas and urban construction zones, in order to avoid the potential spatial-use conflicts for the high landscape connectivity. The land-use demands were fully met to improve the resilience of the territorial spatial structure. Overall, a great contribution was also made to extend the systematic conservation planning into the territorial spatial functional zoning. The cost–benefit considerations were embedded into the zoning optimization. The empirical framework can offer practical insights to optimize the territorial spatial patterns and then refine the major function-oriented zoning, particularly in regions with high development and complex land-use conflicts.

Cultivated land use stability is of great significance for national food security, and economic and ecological balance, especially in the context of land degradation. Therefore, an emphasis has also been put on the multifaceted stabilization in the quantity, quality, and layout of the cultivated land in China. Among them, the Yangtze River Delta (YRD) is one of the main grain-producing areas. In this study, a systematic synergy was proposed to evaluate the cultivated land use stability for the YRD in the period from 2000 to 2020. Three products of the land use were also fused, including China Land Cover Dataset (CLCD), China’s Annual Cropland Dataset (CACD), and Global Land-cover Product with Fine Classification System at 30m(GLC_FCS30D). The cultivated land data was first collected from the official statistical yearbooks and the Second National Land Survey. Secondly, the transition of the cultivated land use was combined with the ‘quantitative structure, spatial pattern, and utilization’. A multi-dimensional evaluation was then constructed for the stability of the cultivated land use using the entropy weight. The scores of the districts and counties were calculated in the study area under three single dimensions. The stability of the cultivated land use was then partitioned at the district and county scales. Its spatiotemporal evolution patterns were finally obtained after evaluation. The results showed that: 1) The cultivated land area was ever-decreasing using fusion data, with a decrease of about 49% in Shanghai, 30% in Zhejiang, 19% in Jiangsu, and 18% in Anhui. The fusion data has reduced the discrepancy between conventional cultivated land products and official statistics after spatial consistency analysis. The continuous data acquisition was realized on the small-scale cultivated land. 2) The stability of the cultivated land use varied in the various single dimensions. But all of them generally showed better stability in the northern part of the region, while the worst one was in the southern. 3) According to the multi-dimensional stability of the cultivated land use, the counties were divided into four zones, namely the moderate optimization, priority enhancement, potential development, and key regulation zone. The proportion was 37.99%, 9.42%, 15.91% and 36.69% respectively. Their spatiotemporal patterns show that the priority enhancement zones tended to develop into moderate optimization ones, while the key regulation zones were mostly transformed from the potential development ones. Therefore, differentiated regulation should be implemented to overcome the dominant problems in each sub-region in the context of the dual challenges of nature and human activities. This multi-dimensional evaluation of the cultivated land use stability can fully meet the needs of the regional development trend in the different stability zones. The finding can provide a strong reference to guide the stable protection and efficient use of cultivated land in agricultural modernization.

The strategic optimization of cultivated land's spatial structure is essential for enhancing agricultural production's efficiency and sustainability. Consolidating contiguous cultivated land areas can increase economies of scale, reduce costs, and minimize ecological edge effects. Additionally, upgrading infrastructure and enhancing connectivity among these areas promote the efficient distribution and marketization of agricultural resources. This study adopted a "pixel-neighborhood-patch" approach to comprehensively evaluate the area, shape, structure, and connectivity of cultivated lands. It established a framework for assessing cultivated land agglomeration and connectivity. The research explored the spatial and temporal dynamics and optimization strategies for the cultivated land layout in Jiangsu Province from 2000 to 2020.The results indicated that the degree of cultivated land agglomeration in Jiangsu Province generally exhibited a downward trend, particularly in areas that experienced rapid economic development and urbanization. The province decreases from the central to the north and south, and 98.94% of the counties decrease to varying degrees. The connectivity of cultivated land showed significant regional differences. The connectivity in the southern region was significantly weakened, while the central to northern regions formed a connectivity advantage belt with Baoying County and Suyu District as the core. Considering the current status and trends, Jiangsu Province was divided into six regional types. The proposed optimization strategies for cultivated land, tailored to regional characteristics, included regional management, infrastructure improvement, ecological edge effect management, and technical information support. These strategies aimed to enhance the utilization efficiency and ecological stability of cultivated land, thereby promoting the healthy and sustainable development of the agricultural ecosystem. This study established a novel framework to assess the degree of agglomeration and connectivity in cultivated land, covering aspects from area, shape, and structure, to the geographical obstacles, transportation network, and agricultural management intensity that affect the connectivity of cultivated land. This framework provided a comprehensive and precise perspective on optimizing cultivated land management. Through this framework, key cultivated land protection and utilization areas can be effectively identified and targeted management strategies can be implemented. Furthermore, the research framework offers significant reference and applicability for other regions, supporting the adoption of more scientific and systematic approaches to farmland management.