Eco-efficiency of arable land utilization (EALU) emphasizes efficient coordination between land use systems and ecosystems. It is therefore of great significance for agricultural sustainability based on the systematic assessment of EALU. This study took carbon emissions and non-point source pollution resulting from arable land utilization into the measurement system of EALU, and a super-SBM model, kernel density estimation and Tobit regression model were used to analyze regional differences and influencing factors of EALU for 31 provinces in China from 2000 to 2019. The results showed that there was an upward trend in EALU in China from 0.4393 in 2000 to 0.8929 in 2019, with an average annual growth rate of 4.01%. At the regional level, the EALU of three categories of grain functional areas generally maintains an increasing trend, with the highest average value of EALU in main grain marketing areas (MGMAs), followed by grain producing and marketing balance areas (GPMBAs) and main grain producing areas (MGPAs). There are obvious differences in EALU among provinces, and the number of provinces with high eco-efficiency has increased significantly, showing a spatial distribution pattern of “block” clustering. In terms of dynamic evolution, kernel density curves reflect the evolution of EALU in China and grain functional areas with different degrees of polarization characteristics. The results of Tobit regression show that natural conditions, financial support for agriculture, science and technology inputs, level of industrialization, agricultural mechanization, and the living standards of farmers are significant factors resulting in regional disparities of EALU. Therefore, this study proposes the implementation of differentiated arable land use/agricultural management strategies to improve the sustainable utilization of arable land.

In view of the differences of land use structure and ecological environment changes caused by land consolidation projects with different features and landforms, this paper uses the modified ecosystem service value estimation model to quantitatively evaluate the change patterns of the ecosystem service value (ESV) of land consolidation, development and arrangement projects in Hubei Province under plains, hills and mountains to provide a theoretical basis for the ecological transformation of land consolidation. The results show that, compared with the pre-land consolidation period, (1) the total amount of ESV in the land consolidation project areas has increased, whereas the land development and arrangement project areas have decreased. Under the same nature, the growth rate of land consolidation project areas is as follows: hills < plains < mountains, and the loss rate of land development and arrangement project areas are as follows: mountains > plains > hills and hills > mountains > plains, respectively. Under the same landform, the total loss rate of ESV in land development project areas is slightly lower than that in land arrangement project areas. (2) The total amount of ESV in the land consolidation project areas under different natures and landforms of the supply service function shows a decreasing trend, and the total amount of ESV of the adjustment service, support service and cultural service function shows an increasing trend in the land consolidation project areas, whereas the land development and arrangement project areas show a decreasing trend. There is an obvious value transformation process of “ecology for production” in the land development and arrangement areas.

The deviation of implementation of China’s cultivated land protection policy is the core problem urgently needing to be solved in the process of protecting the country’s cultivated land. This paper aims to explain the universality of this implementation deviation from the perspective of the spatial interaction of fiscal land strategies. Based on the data of 30 provinces in China from 2000 to 2015, the spatial Durbin model is used to validate the corresponding theoretical hypothesis. The results show that: (1) At the national or regional level, the given local government’s behavior with regard to land conveyance and land-orientation investment will aggravate implementation deviations of the cultivated land protection policy in the local area. (2) Land conveyance and land-orientation investment behaviors cause a spatial spillover effect. As a result, these behaviors not only exacerbate the implementation deviation of the cultivated land protection policy in the local area, but also exacerbate this deviation in adjacent areas. (3) The spatial spillover effects of land conveyance and land-orientation investment strategies in the eastern, central and western regions of China show marked differences. However, in general, compared with the land transfer strategy, the spatial interactions of the land-orientation investment strategy represent the more important factor that gives rise to the widespread deviation in the implementation of the cultivated land protection policy. (4) The transformation of the performance appraisal system can help to weaken the interactive behavior of the land financing strategy. This can, in turn, not only alleviate the deviation degree of the implementation of the local cultivated land protection policy, but also the deviation degree of the implementation of the latter in adjacent areas.

Rural land consolidation projects (RLCPs) have become one of the largest organized human activities to change land use patterns and impact terrestrial ecosystems, and it may also be an important precondition to improving ecosystem service value (ESV). Evaluating the change in ecosystem service value (ESV) is an important basis for measuring the effectiveness of RLCPs. Therefore, this paper, taking RLCPs implemented at County Level in Hubei Province, China, as an example, uses the improved ESV evaluation model to analyze the spatial differentiation of ESV change in RLCPs and then adopts geographic detectors and a geographically weighted regression model to identify the dominant factors affecting the ESV change in RLCPs. The results showed that (1) although RLCPs make the unevenness of land use obvious, they reduce the complexity of land use evidently and improve the dominance of land use significantly; (2) The ESV of RLCPs in 71 counties of Hubei Province increased, with an average increase of USD 2.37 × 10⁷ a⁻¹. The ESV increase is large in central Hubei, while small in eastern and western Hubei. However, the increase rate of ESV is high in eastern and central-north Hubei, while low in western and central-south Hubei. This indicates that RLCPs can effectively promote ESV, but there are significant regional differences, and (3) the ESV increase is positively correlated with GDP and construction scale, but negatively linked with investment and per capita income of rural residents. The ESV increase rate is negatively associated with cultivated land proportion and land use diversification index change, but it is positively related to the change in the land use evenness index. However, their driving effects have significant spatial heterogeneity.