Spatiotemporal Evolution and Regulatory Pathways of Land Use Transition and Carbon Emission Effects in the Pearl River Delta: A Resilience Perspective

The coupling relationship between land use transition and carbon emissions is a critical scientific issue for achieving regional carbon neutrality. This study integrates dynamic land use models, geographically and temporally weighted regression (GTWR), and a framework to assess the exposure, sensitivity, and adaptive capacity to carbon emissions in the Pearl River Delta (PRD) region from 2000 to 2020. The key findings include the following. (1) Construction land expansion dominated explicit land use transition (88.79%). The land use sources shifted from cropland to multiple land use/cover types, including cropland, woodland, and water. (2) The implicit land use morphology index exhibited an annual growth rate of 15.6%, characterized by three phases (rapid development, steady adjustment, and high-quality transition), indicating increasing resilience to advanced transformation. (3) Total carbon emissions increased by 186.96% with significant spatial heterogeneity (Guangzhou > Foshan > Shenzhen > Dongguan). The area of construction land scale and GDP per unit area were key drivers, and industrial structure optimization contributed 26.7% to emission reduction. (4) The carbon emission resilience index (CRI) rose from 0.53 to 0.58, with high values in Shenzhen and Zhangshan and low values in Jiangmen and Zhaoqing, indicating technological innovation and policy synergy were critical pathways. This research provides scientific support for low-carbon land management strategies in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area.