Investigating the influence of digital technology innovation on land ecological security: Empirical evidence from the city clusters in the middle reaches of the Yangtze River

The rapid progression of digital technology innovation has increasingly influenced land ecological security in recent years. Utilizing the Pressure-State-Response framework, this study measures land ecological security of the city clusters in the middle reaches of the Yangtze River from 2006 to 2021 and investigates the effect of digital technology innovation on it. The results indicate that digital technology innovation can effectively promote land ecological security, maintaining its validity following the endogenous and robustness tests. Furthermore, mechanism analysis reveals that digital technology innovation promotes land ecological security by facilitating talent agglomeration, economic agglomeration and digital entrepreneurship agglomeration. The moderation mechanism demonstrates that as digital infrastructure becomes more advanced and public environmental attention increases, the impact of digital technology innovation on land ecological security intensifies. Additionally, the heterogeneity findings show that digital technology innovation plays a pivotal role in enhancing land ecological security within the Wuhan city clusters, as well as in cities with high land ecological security level and the large-scale cities. Further analysis reveals the existence of a boundary effect between digital technology innovation and land ecological security. These findings provide valuable theoretical insights and policy implications for the application of digital technology innovation to promote land ecological security.