Monitoring Land-Use Efficiency in China's Yangtze River Economic Belt from 2000 to 2018

Monitoring of the indicator Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 11.3.1 is important for understanding the coordination between land consumption rate (LCR) and population growth rate (PGR). However, the spatiotemporal indicator SDG 11.3.1 changes at the urban agglomeration (UA) level, and the relationship between LCR and PGR in the prefecture-level cities from different UAs remains unclear. In this study, we monitored the spatiotemporal indicator SDG 11.3.1 in the Yangtze River Economic Belt (YREB) and its three major UAs (i.e., Chengdu-Chongqing (CC), the Middle Reaches of the Yangtze River (MRYR), and the Yangtze River Delta (YRD)) for the periods 2000-2010, 2010-2015, and 2015-2018, using the space-time interaction (STI) method and Pearson's method. Our major findings were as follows: (1) Compared with the world average of 1.28 for LCRPGR (i.e., ratio of LCR to PGR), except for the LCRPGR of the YRD (2000-2018) and CC (2000-2010), the LCRPGR of CC, the MRYR, and the YREB was lower than 1.28 during 2000-2018. (2) The gaps in both population and built-up area between the YREB and the three UAs did not narrow, but widened. (3) Compared with the LCRPGR in China, except for the LCRPGR of the YRD (2000-2018) and CC (2000-2010), the LCRPGR of the YREB increased from 1.21 to 1.23 between 2000-2010 and 2010-2015, and then decreased to 1.16 in 2015-2018, indicating that the relationship between LCR and PGR in the YREB is relatively stable. (4) A significant positive relationship (p < 0.001) was found between LCR and PGR in CC, the MRYR, the YRD, and the YREB. We conclude that the indicator SDG 11.3.1 is a helpful tool for evaluating land-use efficiency caused by the LCR and PGR at the UA level. Our results provide information support for promoting sustainable and coordinative development between LCR and PGR.