Land resource management and sustainable development: Evidence from China's regional data

Land resource intensive use (LRIU) is the future direction of land natural resource management with significant implications for sustainable development. Henceforth, this study examines the impact mechanism of land natural resource use on sustainable development using China's provincial data from 2008 to 2020. The results reveal that LRIU promotes sustainable development in both quantitative and qualitative terms, and these effects remain valid after robustness and endogeneity tests. However, these influences substantially vary across geographic locations and development stages. LRIU mainly achieves sustainable development by curbing the inflated industrial restructuring and driving technological progress. These findings suggest that LRIU policy should be decisively implemented according to site-specific conditions, giving full play to its impact on industrial restructuring and technological progress.