land Article Land Economic Efficiency and Improvement of Environmental Pollution in the Process of Sustainable Urbanization: Case of Eastern China Binbin Chang 1 and Lei Chen 2,* 1 School of Finance and Accounting, Henan University of Animal Husbandry & Economy, Zhengzhou 450046, China;
[email protected] 2 School of Finance and Economics, Jimei University, Xiamen 361023, China * Correspondence:
[email protected] Abstract: Economic development, environmental protection and land resources are important com- ponents in sustainable cities. According to the environmental Kuznets curve, developing countries are prone to environmental pollution problems while developing their economies. At the same time, as urbanization progresses, the problem of inadequate land resources and land use efficiency in China is coming to the fore. Although China is a developing country, it began to actively implement environmental protection measures years ago in an effort to transform itself into an innovative country. Therefore, as an economic and policy pioneer region, can eastern China benefit from all three aspects of land–economy–environment at the same time? Or will the increase in land economic efficiency (Land_EcoE) and the improvement of environmental pollution occur simultaneously? With the characteristics of land use efficiency and other concepts, this study combines economic factors and land factors to establish a Land_EcoE evaluation system. On the basis of mapping the Citation: Chang, B.; Chen, L. Land spatio-temporal evolution of carbon emissions and Land_EcoE, and discussing the spatio-temporal Economic Efficiency and Improvement of Environmental evolution characteristics and correlation between them initially and visually by means of geographic Pollution in the Process of Sustainable data visualization, this study uses the data of 84 prefecture-level cities and municipalities directly Urbanization: Case of Eastern China.