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Humanities and Social Sciences Communications (2026)
We are providing an unedited version of this manuscript to give early access to its findings. Before final publication, the manuscript will undergo further editing. Please note there may be errors present which affect the content, and all legal disclaimers apply.
Urban expansion, as a key spatial manifestation of rapid urbanization, often triggers competition among production, living, and ecological spaces and thereby intensifies land space conflict. However, how conflict dynamics respond to urban expansion over time, and how multi-dimensional urbanization drivers shape conflict intensity, remain insufficiently clarified. This study develops an integrated analytical framework with two complementary modules: (i) a spatial-response module that evaluates how changes in land space conflict respond to urban expansion across grid units and their city-level aggregation, and (ii) an urbanization-driven module that examines how urbanization subsystems and their interactions drive conflict intensity at the city level. Taking Jiangsu Province as a rapidly urbanizing case, we analyze the period 2000–2020. Results show that land space conflict intensity (LSCI) increased continuously, whereas urban expansion intensity (UEI) and changes in LSCI (LSCIc) followed an inverted U-shaped temporal trajectory. LSCIc is positively associated with UEI, with an observable lag effect, and high-response areas shift across periods. Factor interactions among urbanization subsystems enhance the driving effect on LSCI. Based on response and driving patterns, cities are categorized into development types and corresponding spatial governance recommendations are proposed to support land-space optimization and high-quality urbanization.
This study was supported by the Ministry of Education of Humanities and Social Sciences (No. 25YJC630093), Natural Science Foundation of Hebei Province, China (No. D2025203011), Funded by Science Research Project of Hebei Education Department (No. QN2026111), National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 72474214).
School of Public Administration, Yanshan University, Qinhuangdao, 066000, China
Xizhao Liu, Yao Cheng & Guoheng Hu
School of Public Administration, China University of Mining and Technology, Xuzhou, 221116, China
Xiaoshun Li
PubMed Google Scholar
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Correspondence to Xizhao Liu or Guoheng Hu.
The authors declare no competing interests.
This article does not contain any studies with human participants performed by any of the authors.
This article does not contain any studies with human participants performed by any of the authors.
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Tables 4–6
Figures 13–15
a–d Relative change elasticity coefficients between LSCI and population urbanization, economic urbanization, soacial urbanization, and land urbanization respectively.
Urbanization level in Jiangsu Province from 2000 to 2020.
a–d Spatial distribution of decoupling types during 2000-2005, 2005-2010, 2010-2015, and 2015-2020, respectively.
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Liu, X., Cheng, Y., Hu, G. et al. Spatial response and interactive relationship of land space conflict to urbanization in rapidly urbanizing regions: an empirical study of Jiangsu Province. Humanit Soc Sci Commun (2026). https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-026-08453-9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-026-08453-9
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Humanities and Social Sciences Communications (Humanit Soc Sci Commun)
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