The Coordinative Evaluation of Suburban Construction Land from Spatial, Socio-Economic, and Ecological Dimensions: A Case Study of Suburban Wuhan, Central China

As a zone lying adjacent to urban areas, construction land development in suburbs includes urban expansion caused by urbanization and rural construction land increments caused by rural development. Given the necessity of satisfying urban and rural development demands while protecting the ecological environment, goals of land use efficiency, socio-economic coordination, and ecological benefit need to be ensured simultaneously, which indicates that the coordinative development of suburban construction land is of great significance, thereby raising the need for a reasonable evaluation for the coordinative level from multiple dimensions. However, the evaluation of suburban construction land coordination considering spatial, socio-economic, and ecological factors is insufficiently studied. To fill the research gap, this study comprehensively evaluates the coordination of suburban construction land at the town level. Specifically, four indicators from spatial, socio-economic, and ecological dimensions, including landscape pattern, accessibility, socio-economic symbiosis, and ecological functional suitability, are selected. By utilizing coupling coordination degree estimation, the coordination among the four selected indicators is evaluated. By adopting a case study of suburban Wuhan, different coordinative levels regarding suburban construction land development are identified and respondent suggestions to promote the coordination of suburban construction land under current China’s land use policies are provided. This study contributes to understanding the coordinative development of suburban construction land and proposing a method to estimate the coordination.