Abstract:
A coupling coordination can often be found in the cultivated land use transformation and the urban-rural integration at the county level. It is of great significance to reveal the spatiotemporal evolution and driving factors between them, in order to promote the cultivated land and the high-quality urban-rural integration. The Harbin-Changchun urban agglomeration is one of the most important grain production regions in China. However, there was the serious degradation of cultivated land quality and the aggravation of soil erosion in this region in recent years, due to the influence of irrational agricultural production and cultivated land use. The urban-rural integration can be confined to the large-scale and intensive use of cultivated land. It is still lacking on the mutual promotion between the transformation of cultivated land use and the urban-rural integration at the county level. Taking the Harbin-Changchun urban agglomeration as a typical area, this study aims to explore the coupling coordination between them. The statistical data of 63 counties (county-level cities) was collected from 2011 to 2021. The entropy and the coupling coordination degree model were used to measure the cultivated land use transition index, the level of urban-rural integration development at the county level, as well as the coupling coordination degree. The results show that: 1) An upward trend was observed in the coupling coordination degree of cultivated land use transformation and urban-rural integration at the county level from 2011 to 2021. A balanced evolution pattern was achieved in space. In addition, there were the relatively small areas of moderate coordination after the classification of coupling coordination. The moderate coordination areas were accounted for only 31.746%. There was no highly coordination area. The coupling coordination degree was expected to be improved. 2) There was the significantly positive global Moran's I for the coupling coordination degree of cultivated land use transformation and urban-rural integration. The specific values were concentrated in the interval 0.184, 0.385, indicating the outstanding positive correlation. Spatial differentiation was also formed in some areas. The high-high agglomeration areas were distributed mainly in Songyuan, Suihua, and Qiqihar Cities. While there was the relatively stable distribution of low-low agglomeration areas in the Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture. 3) The coupling coordination degree of cultivated land use transformation and urban-rural integration was depended mainly on the natural environment, market conditions, and government factors. Among them, there were the negative effects of the slope and fiscal decentralization on the coupling coordination degree. While the positive significance was found in the direct and indirect effects of per capita GDP, industrial upgrading index and agricultural mechanization level. Finally, the countermeasures were also proposed to explore the coupling mechanism between cultivated land use transformation and urban-rural integration at the county level. The differentiated path of coupling coordination was constructed to explore the influencing factors on the improvement of coupling coordination.