Evaluation, spatial-temporal transition and obstacle factor diagnosis of cultivated land use quality in Guangdong Province

Cultivated land use quality refers to the degree to which it can meet human well-being under different environmental conditions and utilization. The comprehensive effect can originate from the background of regional natural resources, socio-economic environment, and cultivated land protection. An accurate evaluation of cultivated land use quality has been the theoretical and practical significance for food security in sustainable agricultural development. Among them, Guangdong Province is one of the most typical regions of agricultural transformation during rapid urbanization and industrialization. In this study, the pressure-state-response (PSR) framework and the exploratory spatial-temporal data analysis (ESTDA) were utilized to reveal the spatiotemporal characteristics of cultivated land use quality in Guangdong Province at county scale from 2005 to 2020. The barrier model was also established to diagnose the obstacle factors. The results showed that the index of cultivated land use quality was gradually enhanced from 0.302 to 0.352 with an average annual growth rate of 1.03%, indicating a better overall improvement. There were also outstanding stages and regional differences. The index of cultivated land use quality was ranked in the descending order of the Mountainous area, the Pearl River Delta, East wing, and West wing. The growth rate was then ranked in the descending order of the Pearl River Delta, West wing, East wing, and the Mountainous area. 2) 49.09% of the total county-level units were found with a LISA (local indicators of spatial association) time path length greater than 1. By contrast, 70.00% of the total was represented by the county-level units with a LISA time path curvature smaller than the average. Meanwhile, 60.91% of the total county-level units shared the coordinated growth in the direction of time paths. Furthermore, there were significant spatial fluctuations in the land use quality of some counties in the Pearl River Delta, the western region, and the mountainous areas. Overall, the strong spatiotemporal dependence was observed in the spatial structure in the quality of land use, together with the transitional inertia and activity. 3) The top three factors hindering the cultivated land use quality were ranked as follows: per capita agricultural output value, terrain distribution index, and per unit agricultural output value. Correspondingly, the output efficiency of cultivated land and resource endowment were the main obstacles to the high cultivated land use quality. It is necessary to the vigilance against falling into the "comparative advantage trap" and the "generalization" of the cultivated land planting structure in the protection and utilization of cultivated land. Three policy recommendations were proposed to realize the agricultural layout modernization and high-quality development. Firstly, modern agricultural industrial parks can be constructed to fully leverage the exemplary effect of agriculture demonstration. Secondly, the "non-grain" governance of cultivated land can be orderly promoted to consider the spatial structural differences of land resources. Lastly, the pilot projects can be implemented to explore the fragmented contracting of land, particularly on comprehensive territorial management at the regional level.