Urban Land Use Efficiency and Sustainability
Summary
Urban land use efficiency and sustainability encompass the optimisation of land resources to meet social, economic and environmental objectives within urban systems. Efficient land use seeks to maximise productive outputs—housing, commerce and industry—while minimising ecological footprints such as carbon emissions, habitat loss and resource depletion. Sustainable urban development integrates compact growth, mixed-use planning and transport connectivity to reduce sprawl and preserve ecosystem services. Metrics of efficiency often employ operational research methods to evaluate inputs (land, capital, labour, energy) against desirable outputs (economic value, social benefits) and undesirable outputs (pollutants, greenhouse gases). Policy instruments—from low-carbon city pilots to smart city programmes—shape land-use dynamics by incentivising technological innovation, industrial upgrading and green infrastructure. Globally, real-world applications span the retrofitting of brownfield sites, transit-oriented development and landscape restoration initiatives that demonstrate how coordinated planning can foster resilient and equitable urban futures.
Research from Nature Portfolio
Recent studies have examined how industrial structure transformation drives green land use efficiency in resource-based cities. Findings reveal that optimising and rationalising industrial sectors bolsters efficiency by reallocating inputs towards low-impact activities, with the magnitude of effect varying across city types and efficiency thresholds. Quantile analyses indicate that structural upgrades yield diminishing returns at higher efficiency levels but are crucial in regions with lower baseline performance. Earlier work utilised spatially explicit super-efficiency models combined with geospatial regression to map historical land-use performance, identifying persistent “high-efficiency” corridors in eastern regions and highlighting how vegetation cover, digital night-light intensity and terrain influence local outcomes.
Urban Land Use Efficiency and Sustainability publication trend
The graph below shows the total number of articles in urban land use efficiency and sustainability across all publications each year (not limited to Nature Index journals).
Technical terms
Super-efficiency SBM model: An advanced form of Data Envelopment Analysis that accommodates undesirable outputs and ranks efficient units above unity. Coupling coordination degree: A composite index measuring the synchronisation between multiple subsystems such as land use and urbanisation. Green land use efficiency: A performance metric assessing economic and social outputs relative to environmental impacts. Undesirable outputs: By-products of production or development, such as pollutants and greenhouse gases.
References
- Does Smart City Construction Improve the Green Utilization Efficiency of Urban Land?. Land (2021).
- Analysis of Spatial Pattern Evolution and Influencing Factors of Regional Land Use Efficiency in China Based on ESDA-GWR. Scientific Reports (2019).
- The Low-Carbon City Pilot Policy and Urban Land Use Efficiency: A Policy Assessment from China. Land (2022).
- Industrial upgrading and its influence on green land use efficiency. Scientific Reports (2023).
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