Rural land sustainability development planning and use by considering land multifunction values: A case study of analysis and simulation

Multifunction values and optimizations of land use are greatly responsible for improving the comprehensive development abilities of rural area. However, current studies less quantitatively clarified their causal relationships. To bridge the gap, this study firstly took a typical region in the Northeast China, Qiqihar city, as a case study area in view of the importance of the synergy promotion between black soil land optimal use and rural development in China. Land use function values were secondly introduced into rural land use optimization simulations with the help of the models of Markov-chain and multi-objective planning, and proposed four potential 2035 rural development scenarios, i.e., maintaining current development (S1-MCD), low-speed development (S2-LSD), middle-speed development (S3-MSD), and high-speed development (S4-HSD). A model of coupled machine learning and cellular automaton was finally used to simulate explicitly spatial land use structures. Results showed the comprehensive benefits of 2035 rural land use size was lowest in S1-CMD scenario, followed by S2-LSD scenario and S3-MSD scenario, while S4-HSD scenario boasted the highest value. In comparison to S1-CMD and S2-LSD scenario, S3-MSD and S4-HSD scenarios could be suitable modes for future Qiqihar rural area due to higher function values. Croplands, ecological lands (including forests, grasslands, and water bodies), unused land and built-up land were 69.17 %, 16.86 %, 8.88 %, 5.10 % of the total study area for S3-MSD scenario, and 69.17 %, 16.84 %, 8.20 %, 5.79 % for S4-HSD scenario, respectively. They both highlighted to optimize land use structures, e.g., reducing and redistributing current croplands, and increasing ecological lands. The S3-MSD scenario particularly underlined increasing forests to improve the ecosystem service function value in space. This study suggests that arousing land multifunction values could be a key channel for the coordinated advancements between rural revitalization and black soil land conservation in the Northeast China. •Land multifunction values were introduced into rural land use optimizations.•Four future potential development scenarios were designed linked with policies.•The PLUS model was used to simulate land use structures under four scenarios.•Qiqihar city was suggested to greatly optimize itself land use structures.•Reducing croplands was mostly converted into ecological lands.