Does the land use structure change conform to the evolution law of industrial structure? An empirical study of Anhui Province, China

Land is the space foothold of industrial development, and the reasonable development of industrial land is related to the reasonable allocation of land resources in a certain area. However, the traditional classification of industrial land is mostly based on its function, form or application, which covers the qualitative change of a regional industrial structure in terms of the change of the land use structure. To explore the heterogeneity of the evolution of classification of industrial land, this paper constructs a new industrial land classification consisting of capital-intensive industrial land, labour-intensive industrial land, and knowledge-intensive industrial land and builds a mechanical equilibrium model based on the data of stated-owned construction land supply in the years from 2007 to 2014 in Anhui Province. The evolution characteristics of industrial land structures are systematically studied in terms of the evolution degree, evolution direction and regional differences. The results show that, from 2007 to 2014, the transformation coefficient of industrial land structures in Anhui Province presents a trend of two-stage descending, taking 2011 as a watershed. The speed of transformation and the degree of spatial aggregation in different regions are different, forming three hotspots of industrial land transformation in Bengbu-Bozhou, Anqing, and Wuhu city. Capital-intensive industrial land is becoming the leading direction of the development of industrial land in northern Anhui, while middle and southern Anhui are dominated by knowledge-intensive industrial land. The article notes out that the direction of the evolution of land use structure basically accords with the theory of industrial upgrading, but different regions are in different upgrading stages. The research results will not only enrich the perspective of the study on the internal structure changes of urban construction land but also provide a reference for the construction of a new statistical system of industrial land.