China's urbanization has undergone several stages, driving a continuous transition in regional land use morphologies. Urban land is the carrier of urbanization, and studying the eco-environmental effects of urban land transition (ULT) is crucial to the formulation of sustainable urban land management policies and the promotion of new-type urbanization. Here, we propose a theoretical hypothesis between ULT and the environmental Kuznets curve (EKC) and analyze the eco-environmental effects of ULT under different urbanization stages after evaluating the spatiotemporal changes of ULT in China. The results showed that ULT had an overall positive effect on eco-environmental restoration during 2006–2019. Furthermore, in different urbanization stages, the impact of ULT on the eco-environment has large differences, mainly manifested as leading to ecological degradation in the early stage and promoting ecological restoration in the later stage, validating the theoretical hypothesis between ULT and EKC. The possible reasons for this phenomenon are related to the functional adaptation of urban land to different urbanization stages. This study can provide recommendations for the improvement of policies related to high-quality urbanization development, and provide a case study on understanding the relationship between land use transition and EKC.
 

Land use transition; Urban land transition; Eco-environment effect; Environmental Kuznets curve; Panel regression model; China