With the rapid development of urbanization and industrialization, China’s metropolitan areas have experienced dramatic transitions of land use, which has had a profound impact on the eco-environment. Accordingly, the contradictions of regional production, living, and ecological spaces have intensified. In this context, analysis of the dynamics of regional production–living–ecological (PLE) spaces has become an important entry point for studying land use transition and its eco-environmental effects, by constructing a classification system of PLE land functions. Using remote sensing data from four periods from 1985 to 2018, this paper explores the spatiotemporal evolution characteristics of PLE spaces and their eco-environmental effects in the Beijing–Tianjin–Hebei (BTH) urban agglomeration, based on GIS and the InVEST model. The results revealed that from 1985 to 2018, the living space of the BTH region expanded rapidly, the production space gradually shrank, and the ecological land remained relatively stable. The eco-environmental quality index within the study area shows obvious regional differences, demonstrating the spatial distribution of “high in the northwest and low in the southeast”, and an overall deteriorating trend in the past 33 years. Moreover, the carbon density decreased gradually from northwest to southeast, and the transformations from production land into living land and from ecological land into production land were the major types of eco-environment deterioration. Our findings will provide guidelines for land use management, and offer references for the functional division of PLE spaces and ecological civilization construction, especially in terms of the coordinated development of the BTH region.

Rural residential land is the main space of a farmer’s life, rural culture, and social relations. Prior research of rural residential land has focused more on its evolvement in plain and traditional agricultural areas. Yet, there is no clear picture of rural residential land expansion, especially in ecologically fragile areas. This study analyzed the characteristics of rural residential land expansion based on 30 m spatial resolution land-use datasets of the Baota District of Yan’an City, Shannxi Province, and further explored the influencing factors and mechanisms of rural residential land expansion through binary logistic regression (BLR) modeling. Our findings indicated that the area of rural residential land in the Baota District increased by 116.16% during 1990–2015. More than 75% of the residential land expansion came from the occupation of cropland. Moreover, rural residential land expansion was heterogeneous in the rural regional system. The expansion scale, speed, and mode diversity of rural residential land decreased with the increased distance to urban built-up areas. Geographical conditions and resource endowments are the primary internal driving factors; urbanization and policy implementation are two major external driving forces. The authors suggest that the realization of regional sustainable development in ecologically fragile areas should strengthen urban–rural integration, focus on constructing central towns, and ensure ecological protection measures.

Consolidating and expanding the achievements of poverty alleviation, and effectively connecting it with rural revitalization, are part of an important path to achieving sustainable poverty alleviation and common prosperity in China, especially in its northwest arid areas. In this paper, the human–earth system was employed to analyze the elemental composition, structural organization, and functional state of China’s northwest arid areas. The results revealed the following: (1) poverty in northwest arid areas stems from the lack of a coupling and coordinating mechanism among humans, the economy, resources, and environmental elements; this is not conducive to transforming ecological advantages into regional development. (2) In the antipoverty stage, China’s northwest arid areas innovate human–earth coupling and a coordinating mechanism through a series of targeted measures. (3) We found that three paths, namely “promoting the integration of featured advantageous industries and tourism culture, innovating the realization path according to local conditions, and paying attention to the subjectivity of farmers” broaden the means of sustainable livelihood, consolidate the achievements of poverty alleviation, and achieve rural revitalization. (4) In particular, it is necessary to practice the concept of green development and pursue ecological industrialization by establishing a policy system of green land-people-industry-right, thus building an endogenous growth mechanism of sustainable poverty alleviation and green development in China’s northwest arid areas. The results provide theoretical support and model reference for the effective connection between consolidating and expanding the key achievements of poverty alleviation and rural revitalization in China’s northwest arid areas.

The issue of multi-scale driving forces within land systems has emerged as one of the pivotal research directions for innovative exploration in the field of land science. However, the understanding of the differences in driving factors across different scales remains relatively inadequate. Based on multi-source data spanning from 2000 to 2020, this study applied GeoDetector models to reveal the evolution of the spatiotemporal pattern of land-use change and the scale differences in driving factors in rural areas of the Loess Plateau region from both prefecture-level scale and township scale. The results indicated that the land-use changes in rural areas of the Loess Plateau had exhibited distinct spatial differentiation characteristics over the past 20 years. Specifically, the land-use change dynamic degree on the Loess Plateau exhibits an upward trend from west to east (slope = 0.031) and a downward trend from north to south (slope = −0.039). Secondly, the spatial scale differences in driving forces of rural land-use change in the Loess Plateau were manifested through variations in dominant factors and differences in the sensitivity of land-use change to various factors. The reasons for these differences lay in scale effects and cumulative effects. These findings would provide decision-making support for policymakers in formulating future sustainable land-use policies for rural areas. Additionally, it would contribute to further advancing the exploration of multi-scale driving forces within rural land systems.