Understanding rural land use transition and regional consolidation implications in China

•A conceptual model of rural land use transition is proposed.•Mutability and periodicity are two characteristics of rural land use transition.•Regional response strategies of rural land consolidation contribute to sustainable land use. The changes in cultivated land and rural residential land and their interrelation are the most direct manifestation of land use transition in rural areas, which is an important basis to carry out rural land consolidation scientifically. This study constructs a conceptual model of rural land use transition and analyses the process characteristics and coupling relationship of land use transition between cultivated land and rural residential land in China in four periods from 1996 to 2016. Then, it puts forward response strategies for regional rural land consolidation. As the results show, an inverse trend between cultivated land and rural residential land, together with a certain degree of volatility demonstrated an inadequate transition in rural land use system. The types of cultivated land and rural residential land transition changed from single dominant to multiple equilibrium, but the main type of rural land use system in different stages was synchronous R negative linking. The spatial pattern of cultivated land and rural residential land transition is obviously unbalanced. The transition of rural land use system in the southeastern part of Hu Huanyong Line is active, where no transition model and process transition model play a dominant role. This area can be considered as priority for rural land consolidation in the future. Rural land consolidation should conform to the rules of land use transition, establish a multi-objective oriented regional differentiation strategy system, and promote the coordinated evolution of rural land use system.