Regional differences, dynamic evolution, and obstacle factors of cultivated land ecological security in China

Under the influence of geopolitical conflicts, extreme weather, and other factors, global food security has been severely impacted. Cultivated land ecological security in China is vital for guaranteeing local food security and sustainable development. Therefore, using provincial data from 2003 to 2020, this research establishes an index system based on the pressure-state-response (PSR) model and assesses its cultivated land ecological security via the entropy weight method. A series of measurements such as Dagum's Gini coefficient and spatial Markov chain are then adopted to reveal changes in regional differences and spatial-temporal characteristics of cultivated land ecological security in China. The findings indicate that this ecological security has risen from insecure to critically secure, but the overall gap has gradually widened, mainly stemming from interregional differences. Cultivated land ecological security exhibits positive spatial clustering characteristics and the phenomenon of club convergence. The amount of water resources, the degree of soil erosion control, and the strength of local financial expenditure on agriculture are the main factors hindering its cultivated land ecological security, and the threats mainly come from the response criterion layer. Therefore, it is essential to strengthen measures for cropland ecological protection, to formulate targeted strategies by combining the regional characteristics, to narrow the intra-regional gap, and to bring into play the spatial radiation effect of high-level provinces.