The interaction between livelihood means and land use pattern of households is the core of the interactive coupling of the human-land system. This study focuses on Qinba mountainous area in southern Shaanxi province, a typical poverty-alleviated mountainous area. With the help of the coupling coordination degree model, kernel density estimation, and trend surface analysis, this study constructs the coupling coordination degree of livelihood efficiency and land use for households, and analyzes the differences between households’ livelihood efficiency and land use level, as well as the coupling coordination relationship between households livelihood efficiency and land use in different types and regions. The research conclusions are as follows. (1) For households in the Qinba mountainous area, southern Shaanxi province, the livelihood efficiency is at a medium level of 0.681, the land use is at a low level of 0.127, while the coupling coordination degree 0.526 is at the primary coordination state. (2) With the increase of nonagricultural degree, the coupling coordination degree of households increases first, and then decreases. (3) The coupling coordination degree for households east-to-west is “sagging”, while south-to-north diagram is “hogging”. (4) The distribution of the coupling coordination degree for agriculture-dependent households east-to-west (the “sagging” diagram) is opposite to the other types of households. By analogy, the distribution of the coupling coordination degree for nonagriculture and agriculture-dependent households north-to-south (the “hogging” diagram) is opposite to the other types of households. The coupling coordination between the households’ livelihood efficiency and land use level is affected by the households’ regional development level, natural resources, geographic location, infrastructure availability and many other factors. Making appropriate livelihood development plans based on the types of households and regional space can both effectively improve the livelihood conditions, as well as offer guidance in promoting regional human-land activity coordination and ensuring sustainable development.

In order to achieve the sustainable development of ecological resources and social economy in the Shiyang River Basin, a series of Ecological Compensation policies have been implemented in the basin. This study takes these policies as an opportunity to design an experiment. The nine counties (districts) affected by these policies are used as the experimental samples, and the period from 2000 to 2019 is the experimental period. The difference-in-differences method is used to study the effect of the series of Ecological Compensation policies in the Shiyang River Basin on the economic development of the basin. Furthermore, the regression discontinuity design was used to estimate the time and mechanism of this effect. The research found that the early start of phase I of the Key Governance Planning Project in 2006 played a significant and continuous promotive role in the economic development of the river basin; the Water Resources Allocation and Regulation Plan significantly promoted the development of tertiary industry in 2005–2007; the Key Governance Planning significantly promoted the development of primary industry in 2007–2010. The results suggest that to optimize the industrial structure to the maximum extent in the future and promote the sustainable development of ecological resources and social economy in the Shiyang River Basin, economic changes, such as water-saving green agriculture and eco-tourism, should be developed.

Sustainable livelihoods are those that are able to cope with and recover from stress and shocks, and that maintain or strengthen livelihood capacity and livelihood capital, without damaging the foundations of the natural environment. In this paper, the IPHACT framework was constructed by improving the classic IPAT equation, and the key factors affecting production output and livelihood sustainability, as well as the factor differences among different livelihood strategy groups, were analyzed. We took 24 counties and districts of Ankang, Shangluo and Hanzhong in the Qin-Ba Mountain area of southern Shaanxi Province as examples, using a survey of farmers’ livelihood status and livelihood capital accounting. The results show that the amplification effect of population size on the environmental impact of livelihood output is widespread and generally significant. Both livelihood sustainability and livelihood benefit passed the significance test in the multi-model analysis, and the negative effect of livelihood sustainability proved the negative correlation between the environmental impact of livelihood output and livelihood sustainability, that is, the higher the livelihood output dependent on natural capital, the greater the environmental impact. The livelihood transformation of Hanzhong City is developing in the direction of reducing the environmental impact of livelihood output, and farmers have successfully practiced green livelihood transformation by changing their livelihood strategies. On the road to common prosperity, livelihood demand will inevitably increase. Reducing the dependence on natural capital is the key to effectively enhancing the sustainability of livelihoods.

As an important way to innovate the pattern of land reform, the land system pilots serve as the crucial driving force in promoting rural economic development under the background of rural revitalization. Based on the panel data of 10 pilots along the Yellow River basin, this paper chose 111 near and distant neighboring regions from 2009 to 2018. This paper tested the spillover effects and regional heterogeneity characteristics of the land system pilots using the propensity score matching-difference-in-differences (PSM-DID) method and regression discontinuity design (RDD). The results are as follows: first, the land system pilots have a significant and general impact on regional economic development; second, the establishment of the land system pilots has different impacts on the economic development of near and distant neighboring regions, which shows obvious policy-effect spillovers; and third, the land system pilots have the strongest stimulating effect on the economic development of the middle reaches of the Yellow River basin, as well as the weakest stimulating effect on upstream regional economic development, which shows the significant spatial heterogeneity of policy effects. The results of the research study are of great significance for the exploration of regionally differentiated system-supply pilots under the background of rural revitalization. Additionally, this study has important implications for further land system improvements and rural economic developments.

The interaction process between farmers’ livelihood and land use is a core link between the interaction and the coupling of the human–land system. It is a complex evolutionary process that involves several issues such as resource-intensive utilization and economic development. This study first constructs a dynamic model of the coupling system of farmers’ livelihood efficiency and land use and designs two types of 31 scenarios based on the farmer’s livelihood mode and land use. This study further simulates the coupling coordination relationship in different scenarios and then proposes suggestions for sustainable development. The findings of our study show that with the development of time, the livelihood capital, livelihood output, and land use level first showed a decline and then an increase. The results also reveal that livelihood efficiency and coordination degree are related to the livelihood mode and land use mode of farmers, while the land use level is not significantly associated with the livelihood mode of farmers. Pure-agriculture farmers have the lowest livelihood efficiency and coordination degree when they have no planting and breeding poultry, while part-time farmers have the highest land use level and coordination degree when they plant cash crops and breeding livestock. Besides, non-agriculture farmers have the highest livelihood efficiency and the lowest land use level when they neither plant crops nor breed livestock. To improve the level of coupling coordination, it is necessary not only to flexibly adjust the farmer’s livelihood and land use mode but also to optimize the allocation of various resources to promote the coordinated and sustainable development of farmers.

This study evaluates the impact of industrial energy efficiency on agricultural development in the 31 member countries of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) from 2015 to 2019. Using dynamic network slack-based measures (DN-SBM) and dynamic network total factor productivity (DN-TFP) indicators, dynamic cross-period information is used to assess the changes in efficiency and productivity of the industrial and agricultural sectors. The empirical results show that the industrial sector of the OECD is more efficient than the agricultural sector, and while some countries have low efficiency, productivity tends to improve. The study has three contributions: 1. Using the concept of the water–energy–food (WEF) nexus as a framework and combining its elements with variables to evaluate the efficiency performance of OECD countries; 2. using a dynamic two-stage DN-SBM model to objectively assess the overall efficiency value and provide improvement suggestions for different stages; 3. a comprehensive analysis of efficiency and productivity; the results can serve as a reference for OECD countries when formulating policies