Assessment of Compensatory Gain on Land Resource Utilization: Insights for Engineering and Environmental Sustainability from China

Abstract

Since China's economic reform in 1978, the utilization of land resources has significantly contributed to material and environmental support for economic growth and industrial progress. However, the distributional effects of compensatory gains from land resources have shown disparities, particularly between urban and rural populations, with rural residents benefiting less from land appreciation. Despite its critical role in engineering sustainable development and environmental management, limited research has focused on the economic and environmental implications of these compensatory gains and their distribution.
This study integrates the Marxian theory of land rent to define the economic and environmental attributes of compensa-tory gains from land resources, emphasizing their distributional impacts across 29 Chinese provinces from 2007 to 2021. Additionally, land development intensity is introduced as a moderating variable to explore its influence on the equitable use of land for industrial and environmental purposes.
The findings indicate that compensatory gains from land resources exacerbate distributional inequities, with significant implications for sustainable land resource management and regional development. The moderating effect of land devel-opment intensity highlights that higher levels of land openness mitigate the widening inequities caused by compensatory gains. These insights are critical for policymakers to enhance land resource utilization in a manner that supports industri-al engineering, environmental sustainability, and socioeconomic equity.