Regional Differentiation of Agricultural Land–Service Scale Coupling and Grain Yield in the Beijing–Tianjin–Hebei Region

ABSTRACT Addressing the risks of land degradation from farmland fragmentation and misaligned inputs, this study examines the coordination between land consolidation and agricultural service systems in the Beijing–Tianjin–Hebei (BTH) region. Historically, asynchronous development between these systems has created structural mismatches, raising the risk of underutilization, ecological inefficiency, and yield decline. Land–service coordination and its nonlinear relationship with grain yield are evaluated to inform region‐specific strategies for sustainable land use. The farmland landscape pattern (FLP) index and a TOPSIS‐based service index capture land and service scaling. The coupling coordination degree (CCD) model measures land–service synergy, while a generalized additive model (GAM) reveals a threshold effect: yields remain limited at low‐to‐moderate coordination but rise sharply once CCD exceeds ~0.8. Fixed‐input and fixed‐FLP analyses indicate that consolidation is a prerequisite for service expansion to effectively enhance yields. k ‐Means clustering identifies three main agricultural systems: (1) low‐coordination, low‐yield zones in ecologically sensitive areas; (2) high‐coordination, high‐yield peri‐urban zones; and (3) moderate‐to‐high coordination, lower‐yield traditional farming regions. Within each cluster, XGBoost–SHAP reveals heterogeneous marginal effects of irrigation, labor, fertilizer, protected agriculture, and FLP. A secondary clustering delineates finer subtypes, enabling county‐level, precision management. Overall, intensification under weak structural coordination is inefficient and heightens degradation risk; productivity gains depend more on optimizing land structure and aligning services than on input volume. By integrating coordination metrics with interpretable machine learning, the study advances a hierarchical typology—spanning macro‐regional systems and intra‐cluster subtypes—to guide spatially targeted, sustainability‐oriented land governance in the BTH region.