Coupling Coordination Analysis of Livelihood Efficiency and Land Use for Households in Poverty-Alleviated Mountainous Areas

The interaction between livelihood means and land use pattern of households is the core of the interactive coupling of the human-land system. This study focuses on Qinba mountainous area in southern Shaanxi province, a typical poverty-alleviated mountainous area. With the help of the coupling coordination degree model, kernel density estimation, and trend surface analysis, this study constructs the coupling coordination degree of livelihood efficiency and land use for households, and analyzes the differences between households’ livelihood efficiency and land use level, as well as the coupling coordination relationship between households livelihood efficiency and land use in different types and regions. The research conclusions are as follows. (1) For households in the Qinba mountainous area, southern Shaanxi province, the livelihood efficiency is at a medium level of 0.681, the land use is at a low level of 0.127, while the coupling coordination degree 0.526 is at the primary coordination state. (2) With the increase of nonagricultural degree, the coupling coordination degree of households increases first, and then decreases. (3) The coupling coordination degree for households east-to-west is “sagging”, while south-to-north diagram is “hogging”. (4) The distribution of the coupling coordination degree for agriculture-dependent households east-to-west (the “sagging” diagram) is opposite to the other types of households. By analogy, the distribution of the coupling coordination degree for nonagriculture and agriculture-dependent households north-to-south (the “hogging” diagram) is opposite to the other types of households. The coupling coordination between the households’ livelihood efficiency and land use level is affected by the households’ regional development level, natural resources, geographic location, infrastructure availability and many other factors. Making appropriate livelihood development plans based on the types of households and regional space can both effectively improve the livelihood conditions, as well as offer guidance in promoting regional human-land activity coordination and ensuring sustainable development.