Analyzing the relationship between rural settlements and rural population change under different policy scenarios is key in the sustainable development of China’s urban and rural areas. We proposed a framework that comprised the mixed land use structure simulation (MCCA) model and the human–land coupling development model to assess the spatiotemporal dynamic changes in rural settlements and its’ coupling relationship with the rural population in the economically developed region of Deqing, Zhejiang Province.

To combat land degradation and deterioration issues, the Grain to Green project (GGP) was implemented on the Chinese Loess Plateau in 1999 and substantially altered the land cover by converting slope farmland into forest and grassland. To effectively achieve sustainable land restoration management and avoid stakeholder conflicts, this study aimed to understand how local stakeholders perceived the current land restoration process and expectations for future land restoration policy, as well as how stakeholders assessed the GGP impacts on local ecosystem service changes.

Knowledge of hydrologic connectivity is important to grasp the hydrological response at a basin scale, particularly as changes in connectivity can have a negative effect on the environment. In the context of a changing climate, being able to predict how changes in connectivity will affect runoff and sediment transport is particularly relevant for land-use planning. Many studies on hydrology, geomorphology and climatology have been conducted in the Lake Tana Basin in Ethiopia, which is undergoing rapid development and significant environmental changes.

Our research aims at unveiling the various drivers that can have an impact on urban densification. Unlike the usual logistic modelling techniques, our study considers multi-level built-up densities ranging from low to high built-up density. The commonly used dataset for a number of present studies is based on raster images. Our study uses vector-based cadastral data to create maps for the years 2000, 2010 and 2020 in order to better trace densification.

Traffic congestion is a contemporary urban issue plaguing transportation planners, land developers, policy-makers, and citizens. While many studies have investigated the impact of built environments on traffic behavior in large metropolises on a regional scale, little attention has been paid to smaller urban areas, in China’s context, especially on a neighborhood level. This study investigates the spatial–temporal pattern of traffic congestion in a small-scale city, Xining, in China.

A landslide is a type of geological disaster that poses a threat to human lives and property. Landslide susceptibility assessment (LSA) is a crucial tool for landslide prevention. This paper’s primary objective is to compare the performances of conventional shallow machine learning methods and deep learning methods in LSA based on imbalanced data to evaluate the applicability of the two types of LSA models when class-weighted strategies are applied.

Henan Province is an important ecological barrier in the middle and lower reaches of the Yellow River. It is of great significance to study its ecosystem quality and the driving mechanisms behind this in order to realize ecological conservation and high-quality development in the Yellow River Basin.

Accurate recognition and extraction of rural residential land (RRL) is significant for scientific planning, utilization, and management of rural land. Very-High Resolution (VHR) Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) images and deep learning techniques can provide data and methodological support for the target. However, RRL, as a complex land use assemblage, exhibits features of different scales under VHR images, as well as the presence of complex impervious layers and backgrounds such as natural surfaces and tree shadows in rural areas.

Requisition–compensation balance is a type of cultivated land protection system in China. The implementation of hydraulic projects has changed the natural conditions unfavorable to the development of agricultural production and effectively improved the quality of cultivated land. This means that the requisition–compensation balance of cultivated land policies for hydraulic projects should be treated differently.

Land policies are commonly used to contribute to the implementation of the public policy of land-use planning (or spatial planning). In this sense, a spatially efficient land policy must allow the planning systems to achieve the land uses promoted by strategic planning. In addition to their role in land-use planning, land policies also contribute to public finance policies. From this perspective, a socioeconomically efficient land policy must allow public authorities to capture land value.

China, with notable population blooming and economic development in the last decades, has experienced profound land-use changes, which, in turn, dramatically impacted the regional, even global and environment system. However, characteristics of land-use changes in China have not yet been well addressed, especially around the year 2000 when a series of land policies were put forward, such as the project of “returning farmland to forest”.

The Changsha–Zhuzhou–Xiangtan region has experienced rapid social and economic development over the past 40 years, and cultivated land has changed dramatically. The contradiction between built and cultivated land has intensified, for which the local government has implemented a series of policies related to cultivated land protection. However, thus far, it is not clear what the substantial effects of the cultivated land protection policies are.