| Existing land consolidation projects effectively increased the amount of cultivated land, improved agricultural facilities and environment, and enhanced overall agricultural productivity. With the development of social economy, the social demand for land consolidation is increasing since it is related with a series of topics, such as construction of new socialist countryside, modern agricultural development, balancing urban and rural development, and environment protection. However, little attention has paid on comprehensive understanding of land consolidation, since there is a gap between the development of land consolidation theories and its practices. So there lacks scientific answer to land consolidation and relevant social economic problems. For example, how is the pressure of social economic development relieved by land consolidaiton? How to find out the mechanism, pattern and path of increase comprehensive productivity of land resources, mainly through the innovation of land consolidation theories and practices? These problems are very important but no answer in the study of land consolidation and land resource science.The analytic framework provided integrative ways to understand land consolidation from the perspective of coordination of HLR, which was based on the dynamic analysis of'context of HLR-coordination of HLR-land consolidation-visions of land consolidation'. It was directed by the theories of coordination of HLR and identification of land consolidation, and was orientated at providing deeper understanding of comprehensive land consolidation. Based on the framework, this dissertation divided the types of HLR, taking Chongqing municipality as a case study. First, land use change and its corresponding environmental effect were analyzed in the basis of description of the characteristics of different landform pattern. Second, the specific context of HLR was explored in Chongqing after it was designated as the fourth Municipality directly under the Central Government. After that, vision designing, oriented objective, path selection and potential appraisals and the process of land consolidation were explored in areas with different HLR types. Finally, the performances of land consolidation were assessed by an index system related to the coordination of HLR, based on samples of land consolidation projects in Chongqing.The results are listed as follows: (1) The analytic framework based on coordination of HLR provided integrative ways to understand land consolidation. It was put forward based on the analysis of'context of HLR-coordination of HLR-land consolidation-visions of land consolidation'. Micro agents would change their behaviors of land use as a response to new pressure and economic opportunity, which would further driver land use change. Then macro public polices would respond to new social economic problems in the pressure of society, economy, resources and environment. The interaction of micro agents and macro policies would require new ways of coordinating HLR. Land consolidation was regarded as a useful way in the coordination of HLR, if the visions, objectives and paths were designed and assessed scientifically and systematically. The proposed framework could be used to better explain the interaction of human and land based on systematic theory rather than dualistic theory.(2) The context analysis and zoning division of HLR types provided scientific foundation of coordination of HLR. The context of HLR would be reflected from land use change analysis in a certain landform. First, a conflict of HLR was witnessed in the western mesa and hilly areas, where environment was improved by'grain to green'policy, intensive agricultural land use and peasants' behavior change in agricultural production and operation. Second, a highly intensive conflict of HLR was found in paralleled valleys and low mountains and hills in the middle of Chongqing. Environment degradation in this area was aggravated by intensive non-agricultural construction activities and use of fertilizer and pesticides, despite it was partly weakened by'grain to green project'and intensive agricultural land use. Third, the disturbance of human activities on environment was reduced in middle-hilly area with eroded and stratified structure in the northeast of Chongqing. In this area, concentrated and high-yield cultivated land was used in small-scale intensive agricultural production, while low-yield cultivated land was utilized in ecological industries due to sloping land conversion program. Fourth, rocky area in valleys and low-middle hills in the southeast part was characterized by recovery from fragile ecological system, which was aroused by extensive and abandoning agricultural production in contrast to intensive land use with transfer of large rural labor force. Based on the above analysis and other plans in social economic development, four types of HLR in Chongqing could be distinguished, namely metropolitan areas with a highly intensive conflict of HLR, a peri-urban area with conflict of HLR, a northeast area with sensitive HLR, and a southeast area with fragile HLR. The rational division of HLR types provided scientific foundation for coordination of HLR through land use.(3) The vision designing of land consolidation should consider multiple factors, such as regional resources endowment, social economic development, agricultural functional localization, scenarios of future HLR, and strategic positioning of land use. First, the visions of land consolidation in the metropolitan area could be concluded as ensuring regional economic security, improving urban function and spatial structure, promoting intensive level of urban land use. They also included improving land use efficiency and enhancing its function, developing modern agriculture, and promoting new socialist countryside construction as well as making space for urban expansion through land consolidation. Second, the visions of land consolidation in the peri-urban area should aim at ensuring security of economic development and food supply for Chongqing Municipality. In order to achieve the goals, some measures should be taken into consideration, such as facilitating intensive and scale operation for modern agriculture, improving living environment for rural inhabitants, receiving transferred industries from urban areas, and providing available land for regional economic development. Third, the visions of land consolidation in the northeast area were summarized as ensuring regional security of food and ecology for this area. The facilities for use should be improved through land consolidation projects and the featured or green agriculture should be cultivated through adjustment of agricultural structure. Land consolidation should promote concentration of rural industries, rural inhabitants and public facilities and construction of good and stable ecological system. Fourth, the visions of land consolidation in the southeast area could be described as ensuring security of ecology and resources. Thus the objectives of land consolidation included construction of ecological forest network, rehabilitation of land destroyed by disaster, land with desertification or land in river basins, development of ecological agriculture, and improvement of living and producing conditions for the poor area.(4) Objective selection of land consolidation was on the basis of vision designing and central function positioning. Path selection was key factor in achieving the objective of land consolidation. First, the objectives of the metropolitan area were to achieve economic benefits, indicated by making space for urban construction and industrial relocation, and at the same time developing urban agriculture and constructing new socialist countryside. The best path for this area was integrated land consolidation composed of urban land consolidation, development zone's land consolidation, rural residential consolidation and farmland consolidation. Second, the objectives of land consolidation in the peri-urban area were to achieve economic benefits and increase grain production, to promote agricultural development and food security, to improve living environment, and to facilitate transferred industrial development and urban construction. The suitable path of land consolidation should include farmland consolidation for the purpose of agricultural development, and land consolidation in central villages and small towns. Third, the objectives of land consolidation in the northeast area were to maintain and improve environment, improve agricultural productivity. The suitable path should be integration of ecology-oriented land consolidation, farmland consolidation for agricultural development, rural residential consolidation in ecological protection area. Fourth, the objectives of land consolidation in the southeast area were ecological recovery or rehabilitation, agricultural landscape optimization and poverty reduction. The reasonable path in the area should include unused land development, disaster preventing land consolidation, land consolidation for optimized landscape pattern, and rural residential consolidation for the sake of poverty reduction.(5) The potential of land consolidation sourced from cultivated land consolidation, rural residential consolidation, unused land development, wasteland reclamation in Chongqing. However, the potential and its spatial-temporal distribution varied in different HLR areas, due to the impacts of different resource endowment, landform, rural population and so on. The results of potential estimation showed that most of the total potential for newly increased cultivated land amounted to 272,990.2 hm2 in the whole Chongqing, and the potential for newly grown horticulture land, forestland and other agricultural land added up to 127,037.34 hm2. In terms of cultivated land potential, the metropolitan area had a potential of 21,697.12 hm2; the peri-urban area having 109,921.70hm2; the northeast area 94,938.81 hm2; the southeast area 46,432.59 hm2. The potential for increased other agricultural land was 15,481.01 hm2 in the metropolitan area; it being 44,582.16 hm2 in the peri-urban area; 53,235.68 hm2 in the northeast area; 13,738.49 hm2 in the southeast area. Furthermor, the potential of newly increased cultivated land, horticultural land, forest land and other agricultural land varied from county to county in the same HLR areas, as a result of different constrains in different counties.(6) The process and effects of land consolidation could really reflect the characters of land consolidation practices and coordination of regional HLR. The data used in the analysis included statistics of land consolidation and related materials in the study area between 2000 and 2008, and questionnaire surveying with 212 households. The results showed that the amount of newly increased cultivated land was in the top rank in the southeast area, the second in the northeast area, the third in the peri-urban area, the least in the metropolitan area, which was in accordance with the distribution of land consolidation potential. The amount was mainly determined by the ratio of the amount of unused land development and wasteland reclamation to the amount of land consolidation. In terms of investment of land consolidation, the higher the level of land consolidation projects was, the larger average input per hectare of the total land area or increased cultivated land area was. So the investment per hectare of national projects was more than that of municipal projects, and even more than that of country projects. Furthermore, the distribution of land consolidation projects was impacted by social economic developments and policies making. The northeast area had the highest number of projects, whereas the metropolitan area the second, the southeast area the third, and the metropolitan area the lowest. According to assessment, land consolidation has positive effects such as increasing cultivated land, improving agricultural facilities, protecting intact ecosystem and increasing household income. However, there were many common problems brought about by land consolidation, including simplifying objectives in land consolidation, conforming design of land consolidation projects, neglecting eco-environment recovery, and lacking post-evaluation of projects.(7) The evaluated index system was proposed form three kinds of effects brought about by land consolidation, including effects of land use change, effects of disaster and eco-environment, effects related with resource, economy and society, which were connected with adjusting and regulating HLR, reducing human and land contradiction, realizing visions of HLR, respectively. Indices with a number of twenty eight were selected to assess the performance of land consolidation, and then twenty land consolidation projects representing with different HLR were selected for assessment. The methods of AHP and fuzzy comprehensive evaluation were applied. The results indicated that the coordination degree of HLR was 0.6383 in the metropolitan areas,0.6659 in the peri-urban area, 0.5747 in the northeast area, and 0.5463 in the southeast area. The coordinating degree of HLR had no significant difference between different HLR areas, with a proximate value of 0.6. Generally, land consolidation projects had satisfied effects as expected in terms of relieving HLR conflicts, but actual effects of land consolidation projects lagged behind the visions mentioned above. In addition, land consolidation projects had variations in land use change and its multiple effects related to environment, economy and society in these areas.In sum, this dissertation conducted a series of research on land consolidation. Considering the relationship between land consolidation and related social economic issues, integrated theoretical perspective was established in land consolidation research, based on the investigation of dynamic process of'context of HLR-coordination of HLR-land consolidation-visions of land consolidation'and the analytical framework of coordinating HLR. The scientific classification of HLR types accurately described the pattern of HLR in Chongqing municipality. After that, study of vision designing, objective selection, path definition, potential appraisal and process investigation provided better understanding on how to coordinate HLR through land consolidation. Finally, the establishment and application of index system of land consolidation from the perspective of coordination HLR improved the theory of land consolidation assessment, and disclosed the effects of coordinating HLR through land consolidation.
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