Interaction between urban land expansion and land use policy: An analysis using the DPSIR framework

Many studies of urban land use have focused on understanding the process and drivers of urban land expansion (ULE). However, these studies rarely examined the long-term trends and abrupt change points of ULE. Moreover, the feedback loop between ULE and land use policy (LUP) has less been investigated. Thus, stakeholders sometimes experience difficulties when utilizing the existing ULE theories in urban land management practices and policy-making. In this study, we used the moving t-test method to detect the trend changes of urban land in China from 1981 to 2015 and a fixed-effects model to recognize the main drivers. The Driver-Pressure-State Impact-Response (DPSIR) framework was applied to synthesize the existing knowledge of ULE to understand the interaction between LUP and ULE. Empirical analysis of 224 main cities indicated that China witnessed varying patterns of ULE through three different stages from 1981 to 2015. It revealed that the accelerated conversion of farmland to urban uses, along with inefficiency land use, led to a variety of farmland protection policies and intensive land use policies. In turn, however, these policies possibly affected the drivers of ULE. The impacts of drivers associated with land demand exhibited an increasing trend. Based on our findings, we suggest that land use policies should take the complexity and systematicity of ULE into consideration in urban land management. Overall, the framework, method, and findings of this study can help to increase the effectiveness of land use policy, not only in China but also in other developing countries.