As land resources and ecosystems provide necessary materials and conditions for human development, land use change and ecological security play increasingly important roles in sustainable development. This study aims to reveal the mutual-influence and interaction between land use change and ecological security in Wuhan, based on the coupling coordination degree model. As such, it provides strategies for the achievement of the synchronous and coordinated development of urbanization and ecological security. The results showed that, during the period from 2006 to 2012, the size of built-up area in Wuhan increased to 26.16%, and that all the other types of land use reduced due to the urbanization process, which appeared to be the main driving force of land use change. The ecological security in Wuhan has been improving as a whole although it was somewhat held back from 2006 to 2008 due to the rapid growth of built-up area. The coupling coordination analysis revealed that the relationship between built-up area and ecological security was more coordinated after 2008. The results can provide feasible recommendations for land use management and environmental protection from the viewpoint of coordinated development. To achieve sustainable development from economic and ecological perspective, policy makers should control the rate of urban expansion and exert more effort on intensive land use, clean energy development and emission reduction.

The scientific analysis of spatial-temporal differentiation characteristics and driving factors of illegal land use is of great significance for the formulation and optimization of policies to control the emergence of illegal land use. This paper establishes two variable systems of illegal land use and its driving factors, defined the multidimensional characteristic variables of illegal land use and analyzes the relationships among them by the Pearson’s correlation coefficient; In addition, the spatial–temporal characteristics of each variable of illegal land use from 2004 to 2017 are described by the spatial autocorrelation analysis; Finally, based on the geographical detectors, the influence direction and degree of the factors of economic structure, social structure and land market behavior on the characteristics of different illegal land use are studied. The results show that the spatial agglomeration of different characteristics of illegal land use had been weakening from 2004 to 2017, but the rate of weakening was different, and L-L agglomeration changed between Xinjiang and other central-western provinces, H-H agglomeration changed in the coastal regions of the central-eastern of China, the level and ability of the central government and local governments to govern illegal land use is constantly improving on the whole; the compositional factors of economic development structure, social development structure, and land market behavior of driving factors had different influence in the degree, the location or the direction of different characteristics of illegal land use. According to the spatial–temporal characteristics and the differences of driving factors, managers can formulate differentiated illegal land use control policies, which will help to control the occurrence of illegal land use and help the settlement of illegal land use cases, and ultimately achieve sustainable development.

Land consolidation is essential in China for improving land use efficiency and supporting rural public space governance. Previously, the implementation of land consolidation projects (LCPs) had been mainly led by governments in China. In recent years, the Chinese government vigorously promoted land consolidation, and land consolidation in the corporation-leading mode (CLM) has emerged. This study focused on investigating the performance of CLM projects and the difference in performance levels between the CLM projects and the government-leading mode (GLM) projects. Based on the improved extensible matter–element model, the performance levels of 14 LCPs in GLM and CLM of Jianghan Plain, Hubei Province and related impact factors were analyzed. A set of evaluation indices was selected based on the “process-based thinking and logic”. Results showed that: (1) performance levels of the 14 LCPs are different, most of the projects in the GLM have ordinary or poor performance, while most of the projects in the CLM have excellent or good performance; (2) factors affecting the performance levels of LCPs are also different in the two modes. The main influencing factors in the CLM were the poor access to field roads, insufficient shelterbelt planting, and low land reclamation efficiency, while the insufficient shelterbelt planting, low annual output value of farmland and grain production capacity, low increase rate of agricultural labor production, and low land reclamation efficiency were the main influencing factors in the GLM; (3) comparative analysis of the two modes revealed that LCPs in the CLM have clear investment directions, high output benefits, and obvious advantages in the development of modern agriculture when compared with the GLM. To achieve improving the performance levels of LCPs, policy makers should actively innovate the implementation mode of LCPs and encourage all kinds of agricultural corporations to participate in land consolidation.

Exploring the interaction relationship between urbanization and ecological security is the key issue to achieve regional sustainable development. This study used coupling coordination model and vector auto-regression model to comprehensively investigate the interaction relationship between urbanization and ecological security in Wuhan City Circle from 2005 to 2018. The results showed that urbanization quality in Wuhan City Circle increased from 0.1818 in 2005 to 0.4355 in 2018, with an average annual increase rate of 10.74%. The ecological security of Wuhan City Circle decreased from 0.4890 in 2005 to 0.4511 in 2015 and increased from 0.4511 in 2015 to 0.4554 in 2018. The degree of coupling coordination between urbanization and ecological security of Wuhan City Circle presented a circle structure with Wuhan as the center and increasing outward. Additionally, the impulse analysis showed that the increase of urbanization had a significant negative impact on ecological security of Wuhan city, Huangshi city, and Xiaogan city. Meanwhile, the ecological security index of Ezhou city, Tianmen city, Huanggang city, Xiantao city, Xianning city, and Qianjiang city were all positive in early stage after the ecological security was impacted by the increase of urbanization. The analysis of historical data and future trends can provide operable recommendations for urbanization development and ecological security protection through cleaner production and efficient use of natural resources from the aspect of coordinated development.

Cities are divided into different levels around the world, which is manifested as cities are managed according to the urban administrative level system in China, urban development boundary (UDB) has always been an spatial policy to limit the scope of urban sprawl. There is a lack of comparative studies on LUCC and influencing factors inside the UDBs of different level cities. Based on the methods of descriptive statistical analysis, transition matrix analysis, Pearson’s correlation analysis, and OLS regression, this paper takes Hubei Province, China as an example to study the statistical regularities of LUCC and its influencing factors within the UDBs of different level cities from 2006 to 2020. The results showed that LUCC is different within the UDBs of different level cities, economic and social factors are related to major types of LUCC at the level of PGHP city, correlations between economic and social factors and major types of LUCC is small at the level of PGPL city, and the influence of environmental governance on LUCC is increasing at the level of PGPL city. differentiated control should be carried out according to the level of city in the process of formulating and implementing the policies of land use management.