Spatiotemporal impact of cultivated land use transition on grain production: Perspective of interaction between dominant and recessive transitions

Clarifying the impact of cultivated land use transition (CLUT) on grain production can provide effective support for formulating land management policies to ensure food security. CLUT means the cultivated land use morphology changes from one to another, including cultivated land use dominant transition (CLDT) and cultivated land use recessive transition (CLRT). However, existing studies have the problem of separating the CLDT and CLRT, resulting in unclear spatiotemporal impact of interaction between them on grain production. In this study, the theoretical frameworks were developed to reveal the coupling interaction between CLDT and CLRT and its impact on grain production. This study further adopted the coupling coordination degree model to quantify the interaction between CLDT and CLRT, and explored the spatiotemporal characteristics of CLDT, CLRT, and coupling coordination degree between CLDT and CLRT (CCD-DR) in China from 2000 to 2020. Additionally, geographically and temporally weighted regression model was adopted to assess the spatiotemporal impact of CCD-DR on grain production. The results reveal that: the cultivated land use recessive morphology improved gradually, while the dominant morphology deteriorated in China from 2000 to 2020. Notably, the significant decline in CLDT was revealed in most provinces in 2005. The synergies between CLDT and CLRT in China have strengthened over the study period, and the eastern region had the stronger synergies than other regions. The development of CLDT lagged behind CLRT, leading to the low synergies between CLDT and CLRT in most provinces. The positive impact of CCD-DR on grain production in China increased from 2000 to 2020. The improvements of the synergies between CLDT and CLRT significantly promoted grain production in most provinces, particularly in western and southern regions, but hindered grain production in northeastern region. This study not only can support policy-making of cultivated land protection to ensure food security, but also can contribute to addressing the previously overlooked correlation between CLDT and CLRT, offering a comprehensive understanding of cultivated land use transition theory.