TIC-driven sustainable land use mode in the Loess Plateau: A case study of gully land consolidation project in Yan'an City, China

The Loess Plateau is one of the most severely eroded areas in the world. The complexity of the multiple challenges facing the Loess Plateau entails the support of scientific and systematic innovations in land use. Based on technological innovation cluster (TIC) theory, this paper develops a self-circulation structure model for the TIC to analyze the hierarchical structure of the land-use innovations in the Loess Plateau. Then, employing the self-circulation structure model and taking the “Gully Land Consolidation Project” (GLCP) as a case study, this paper proposes one TIC-driven sustainable land use mode (TSLUM). A TIC has been developed among innovations in the TSLUM. The structure of TSLUM consists of three types of innovations: basic, related, and infrastructure innovations. Basic innovations are generally radical innovations that breed related, and infrastructure innovations. Diffusion-based and reversal-based mechanisms govern the evolution of the TSLUM. These two clustering mechanisms integrate with each other and jointly promote the development of the TSLUM in a self-circulation way. Furthermore, the TSLUM exhibits multiple functions, such as optimizing gully-slope interaction mechanism, providing continuous driving forces, consolidating the achievements of the “Grain for Green Project”, bolstering rural livelihoods, and fostering some feasible ways for food security. The results obtained will be useful for advancing sustainable land use and regional sustainable development in the Loess Plateau via TICs effectively and systematically.