In rural China, the conversion between fine-grained farmland and large-scale farmland is a widespread phenomenon, changes in the size of farmland can have an impact on agricultural carbon emissions. Based on the agricultural panel data of Gansu Province for 2000–2020, taking the scale of agricultural land management as the breakthrough point and the consumption intensity of agricultural materials as the intermediary factor, this paper discusses the driving mechanism of agricultural carbon emissions by the scale of agricultural land management. The results including: (1) From the perspective of the intermediary effect, large-scale farmers pay more attention to input efficiency of chemicals such as fertilizers than small-scale farmers, which can effectively promote the development of low-carbon agriculture. (2) A “U-shaped” relationship existed between agricultural land management scale and agricultural carbon emissions. The agricultural carbon emissions were the lowest when agricultural land management scale in Gansu was 0.608 hm²/person. (3) The carbon emission intensity reached its peak when the scale of farmland management in the Hexi region was 0.143 hm²/person. The optimal scale of farmland management in the Longdong and Longnan regions was 0.143 and 0.348 hm²/person, respectively, Longzhong and Gannan regions was all showed complete intermediary effects.

The loess hilly region is a typical ecologically fragile and sensitive area. It is of great significance when measuring the balance between supply and demand of ecosystem services and clarify the relationship between supply and demand of ecosystem services for scientific ecological restoration zoning and realizing regional ecological security and social and economic sustainable development. We take Yuzhong County in the loess hilly region of Longzhong, China as an example; by constructing the matching and coordinating relationship between ecosystem service supply and demand and following the idea of “problem diagnosis—strategic orientation—key optimization”, this paper delimits the ecological restoration zones and proposes corresponding governance strategies. The results show that: (1) The supply and demand of ecosystem services were mainly at a low and medium level, with significant spatial heterogeneity. Overall, the spatial pattern of ecosystem services showed high supply and low demand in the southwest mountainous areas and showed low supply and high demand in the urban gully areas of Yuzhong. (2) There were four types of spatial matching of ecosystem service supply and demand: HH type, LH type, LL type, and HL type. The local spatial autocorrelation of supply and demand was dominated by high-low or low-high spatial misadjustment. The average degree of coordination between supply and demand of ecosystem services was 0.629, indicating that supply and demand were basically coordinated. (3) The ecological restoration zones in Yuzhong County can be divided into six categories: the ecological core protection area, ecological potential restoration area, key ecological restoration area, soil and water conservation restoration area, ecological agriculture development area, and ecological innovation promotion area. The results of this study can provide ideas for the refined management and targeted restoration practice of regional ecosystem services. It provides a strong guarantee for ecosystem management and decision-making in the loess hilly region.

Against the backdrop of intensifying global climate change and increasingly prominent resource constraints, achieving synergies between resilience enhancem

In rural China, the conversion between fine-grained farmland and large-scale farmland is a widespread phenomenon, with different impacts on agricultural carbon emissions. Therefore, how to define the optimal scale of farmland management to achieve " reducing CO₂" has become an urgent problem to be solved. Based on the agricultural panel data of Gansu Province for 2000–2020, taking the scale of agricultural land management as the breakthrough point and the consumption intensity of agricultural materials as the intermediary factor, this paper discusses the driving mechanism of agricultural carbon emissions by the scale of agricultural land management. The results including: (1) From the perspective of the intermediary effect, large-scale farmers pay more attention to input efficiency of chemicals such as fertilizers than small-scale farmers, which can effectively promote the development of low-carbon agriculture. (2) A “U-shaped” relationship existed between agricultural land management scale and agricultural carbon emissions. The optimal agricultural land management scale was 7.413 mu/person without considering intermediary variables, and the agricultural carbon emissions were the lowest when agricultural land management scale in Gansu was 9.12 mu/person after adding the intermediary variables. (3) Dividing Gansu into different regions and considering intermediary factors, the carbon emission intensity reached its peak when the scale of farmland management in the Hexi region was 2.14 mu/person. When the optimal scale of farmland management in the Longdong and Longnan regions was 2.14 and 5.22 mu/person, respectively, intermediary variables such as chemical fertilizers in these regions all showed complete intermediary effects.