The basic premise of regional ecological construction would be to scientifically and effectively grasp the characteristics of land use change and its impact on landscape ecological risk. The research objects of this paper are the typical areas of the Yellow River Basin in China and “process-change-drive” as the logical main line. Moreover, this paper is based on multi-period land use remote sensing data from 2000 to 2020, the regional land use change process and influencing factors are identified, the temporal and spatial evolution and response process of landscape ecological risk are discussed, and the land use zoning control strategy to reduce ecological risk is put forward. The results indicated: (1) The scale and structure of land use show the characteristics of “many-to-one” and “one-to-many”; (2) the process of land use change is affected by the alternation of multiple factors. The natural environment and socio-economic factors dominate in the early stage and the location and policy factors have a significant impact in the later stage; (3) the overall landscape ecological risk level and conversion rate show a trend of “high in the southeast, low in the northwest”, shift from low to high and landscape ecological risks gradually increase; and (4) in order to improve the regional ecological safety and according to the characteristics of landscape ecological risk and spatial heterogeneity, we should adopt the management and control zoning method and set different levels of control intensity (from key intensity to strict intensity to general intensity), and develop differentiated land use control strategies.

Integrated development in urban and rural areas has led to a new form of urban–rural interdependence, which promotes rural territorial functional evolution and land use changes. Rural land use transition, showing the synchronous development between cities and villages, is an important window through which to observe integrated development in urban and rural areas. We focus on uncovering the association between rural land use transition and urban–rural integration development (URID), put forward a dynamic relationship assumption between rural land use transformation and URID stages based on the transmission mechanism of urban–rural linkages, and undertake empirical analysis using the panel regression model with the data of county-level administrative units in Shandong Province, China. The results show that rural land use transition has maintained a close association with URID, and that the changes in cultivated land, forest land, and surface-water area are highly related to URID. There are different leading urban–rural linkages in rural areas around big-sized cities, mid-sized cities, and small-sized cities, which determine whether rural areas are in different URID stages of high, medium, or low levels. Further, rural areas can take different actions to promote URID at different stages through strengthening or introducing urban–rural linkages driven by economies of scale and deepening urbanization. This provides a reference for developing countries to formulate rural land use policies on achieving the goal of URID.

Taking the Bohai Economic Rim as the research area and 44 prefecture-level cities as research objects, on the basis of deepening the connotation of urban land use morphology, we constructed a multi-dimensional indicator system for urban land use transition based on the dominant and recessive morphologies of land use. The patterns of change and transition type are described by single-morphology and comprehensive morphology indices, respectively, while a decoupling elastic coefficient model was used to analyze the coupling relationship and evolution process between the dominant and recessive morphologies of urban land use. The results showed the following: (1) From 2000 to 2020, the single-morphology and comprehensive morphology indices of urban land use in the Bohai Economic Rim both improved, to a certain extent. Overall, the transition types of dominant and recessive morphologies of urban land use showed a development trend, in which the degree of recessive morphology transition was higher than the degree of dominant morphology transition, and the spatial difference of its distribution pattern was obvious. (2) From 2000 to 2020, the type of coupling relationship between the dominant and recessive morphologies of urban land use in the Bohai Economic Rim experienced an evolution, from a single-morphology recession decoupling to a single-morphology leading positive hook. The whole region was in the benign development stage of close coupling, where the degree of transition showed the spatial characteristics of Beijing–Tianjin–Hebei > Liaodong Peninsula > Shandong Peninsula. (3) Differences in the economic levels and urbanization processes of different cities led to different paths, speeds, and degrees of urban land use transition, showing stable, volatile, and non-transition paths. The direct influence of different influencing factors, as well as their potential effects, drive the dominant and recessive morphologies of urban land use to grow, in terms of coupling and synergy, promoting the realization of urban land use transition.

Taking the supplement of the quantity and quality of cultivated land in rural settlements as the departure point, this paper discusses the spatial and temporal integration reconstruction method of rural settlements. The disorderly expansion of residential areas in Pinggu District, Beijing, China has led to the erosion of high-quality cultivated land in the region and the advantages of mountain resources have not been fully utilized in this area. Therefore, Pinggu District was selected as the research area. Using the spatial analysis function in GIS, this paper uses the comprehensive correction method of the per capita construction land standard and the neighborhood substitution method to analyze the quantitative potential of rural settlements to supplement cultivated land and the qualitative grade of cultivated land after arrangement. A combination of exclusion matrices are employed to identify the spatial and temporal arrangements of rural settlements. The research shows that the effective cultivated land area of rural settlements in Pinggu District is 514.24 ha, and the coefficient of increasing cultivated land is 9.25%. Rural residential areas in the district are divided into priority sorting area, key sorting area, moderate sorting area, and restricted sorting area; they account for 18.13%, 21.10%, 20.85%, and 39.93% of the total area, respectively. According to the regional characteristics and dominant factor of the different consolidation areas, corresponding consolidation goals, models, and engineering measures are proposed to enrich the theory and approach to village planning and to provide a reference for practitioners engaged in regional rural land consolidation. The innovation of this study is putting forward the consolidation objectives, models and engineering measures based on the regional characteristics and leading factors of different land consolidation areas. This study has reference significance for the formulation and implementation of regional rural settlements consolidation planning and the policy of increasing and decreasing urban and rural construction land.

The rural residential land functions are the comprehensive embodiment of the storage quantity and structural organization of the rural man–land system. Mastering the evolution rule and allocation situation is the basis of effective rural land management and targeted poverty alleviation activities. Based on the theoretical understanding of rural residential multifunction, this paper identifies five functional types and characteristic elements uses a variety of methods to calculate to reveal the spatio-temporal differentiation and allocation and discusses the process mechanism and spatial pattern of function optimization. According to the results, during the sample period, the multifunctional index of rural residential land in China was ranked from large to small as residential function (RF), living function (LF), service function (SF), production function (PF) and ecological function (EF), and the growth rate was ranked from large to small as ecological function (EF), production function (PF), residential function (RF), living function (LF) and service function (SF), and the comprehensive function index increased by more than 50%. The distribution characteristics of all the functional indexes were basically the same. The regional performance was east > central > northeast > west, and the range of each functional index in terms of the interprovincial performance decreased; however, the convergence degree increased, and the number of provinces with comparative advantages in terms of the various functions expanded to more than 50%. The living, ecological, and comprehensive functions increased, while the residential, production, and service functions decreased. The continuous deprivation of the functions and their deprivation in many provinces are problems. This study can provide decision support for promoting the normalization and standardization of superior rural functions.

The land use system, which is endowed with the most crucial and fundamental natural resources for human survival and development, plays a pivotal role within the entire ecosystem. In recent years, cultural ecosystem services (CESs) have also gradually garnered widespread attention. The study of cultural ecosystem services in the land use system plays a significant role in the rational utilization of land resources and the resolution of contradictions between land resources and sustainable development. This review, framed in Land Use/Land Cover Change (LUCC), applies keyword clustering and keyword evolution analysis to comprehensively review and synthesize academic literature on cultural ecosystem services. The analysis is organized into two dimensions: the overall study of cultural ecosystem services in LUCC and the study of specific categories of cultural ecosystem services in LUCC. Relevant papers from CNKI and WOS academic databases are included. The results show that the number of papers retrieved from WOS was significantly higher than the number retrieved from CNKI, while both databases exhibited a clear upward trend in the number of papers. It is worth noting that in the literature retrieval results for different types of land research, the majority of the papers focused on water, accounting for 51% and 44% of the totals in WOS and CNKI, respectively. Among these papers, research centered on recreation and ecotourism was the richest. Through this review, it was further revealed that research on cultural ecosystem services was initiated and has gradually developed into a relatively complete knowledge system. However, research on cultural ecosystem services in LUCC still requires further exploration, particularly in terms of assessment methods. This review thus highlights the need for future research to focus more on cultural ecosystem services in the land use system and to delve deeper into evaluating their values. By employing more scientific and rational approaches, land resources can be effectively managed and utilized to address challenges related to land resources and sustainable development.