**1. Introduction**

Since the industrial revolution, it seems that human development has inevitably led to environmental pollution. "London Fog", "greenhouse effect", "nuclear leak" and other words related to pollution are familiar. Many studies have found that the harm of environmental pollution to human is unexpected and its impact is far-reaching. Dolk and Vrijheid found that water and industrial pollution induce infant congenital anomalies [1]. Grönqvist et al. found that even at a low exposure, the early lead exposure still has a long-term negative impact on children's non cognitive ability [2]. Even plastic particles resulting from human misuse of plastics have been all over the world's land, sea and air ecological cycle (including human body) [3–5]. Nowadays, more and more social organizations and individuals are calling for environmental protection. The *Rio Declaration* provides the basis for the world's environmental protection. Industrial pollution, as the largest proportion of a kind of pollution, has a wide range of impacts [6] and can be deadly [7], making it difficult to be ignored. The focus of the academic community on industrial pollution has never been relaxed. There are studies on the calculation of industrial pollution emissions [8], studies on the reasonable formulation of pollution emission quota [9], and studies on industrial pollution and its driving factors, such as GDP [10], city size [11], openness [12–14], industrial agglomeration [15,16], financial subsidies [17], and environmental protection laws and regulations [18], etc. In recent years, scholars have shifted their research to innovation and environmental protection [19–21]; however, there is little studies on the role of land use transition in environmental protection.

Meng, Y.; Wang, K.; Lin, The Role of Land Use Transition on Industrial Pollution Reduction in the Context of Innovation-Driven: The Case of 30 Provinces in China. *Land* **2021**, *10*, 353. https://doi.org/ 10.3390/land10040353

**Citation:**

Academic Editors: Maciej J. Nowak, Giancarlo Cotella and Przemysław Sleszy ´ ´ nski

Received: 8 March 2021 Accepted: 21 March 2021 Published: 1 April 2021

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**Copyright:** © 2021 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https:// creativecommons.org/licenses/by/ 4.0/).

China is in the era of innovation-driven development. As the second largest developing country in the world in terms of total economic output, China has responded positively to the call of the world. Since the "Ninth Five-Year Plan" period (1996–2000), the Chinese governmen<sup>t</sup> has been consciously reducing energy consumption and emissions. In the "the 11th Five-Year Plan" (2006–2010), energy saving and emission reduction were made binding targets for the local government. For a developing country which is developing rapidly, energy saving and emission reduction are incompatible with economic development in the short term [22]. To address this issue, the Chinese governmen<sup>t</sup> has made a decisive effort to transform its economy from a factor-input-driven sloppy growth model to an innovationdriven intensive growth model. Innovation is the first driving force leading development and the prevention front-end of green development [23]. Innovation can improve the efficiency of energy utilization, bring cleaner energy, and improve the return on capital, so that enterprises can save energy and reduce emissions and obtain profits. Schumpeter first defined innovation as an unprecedented combination of production factors and production conditions. From the subject level, innovation can be divided into national innovation, regional innovation, industrial innovation and enterprise innovation [24]. Compared with other concepts of innovation, the scope of innovation agglomeration is broader, which emphasizes the concentration of innovation level in a region. On the other hand, the contradiction between China's growing economic development needs and inadequate land use efficiency has further prompted factories to promote innovative development and achieve energy saving and emission reduction. As one of the main elements of production and operation, the constraints of land resources on the current urban economic growth in China are increasing [25,26]. According to NUMBEO data, China's housing price income ratio will be 28.4 in 2020, ranking eighth in Asia and more than 2 times of the world average. Soaring land price and exaggerated housing price income ratio declare innovation or bankruptcy with cruel facts. The land finance problem originated from the sub-loan crisis is one of the biggest obstacles to China's economic development. In addition, land and property prices remain high because of price rigidity and immediate consumer demand. Therefore, in the context of an overall innovation-driven development pattern, China urgently needs to improve its land use and ge<sup>t</sup> rid of land constraints, i.e., to achieve an innovation-oriented transition of land use. Land use comprehensively reflects the degree of material circulation and energy exchange among various elements in the urban system, the overall system and the external environment and is the direct manifestation of land value realization in the process of economic development [27]. Land use transition is a manifestation of land use and is also a major research focus of land system science. Scholars have mostly focused on land use in terms of measurement methods and their spatial and temporal distribution characteristics [28–30]. Some scholars have optimised land use efficiency through innovation in managemen<sup>t</sup> practices [31,32]. However, few studies have focused on the relationship between land use transition and environmental protection, and no studies have ye<sup>t</sup> focused on the role of innovation-oriented transition of land use on industrial pollution.

In addition, spatial factors play an important role that cannot be ignored in the study of environmental economic issues [33,34]. Natural geographic factors such as water flow and wind direction allow environmental problems in a region to spread outwards. Not only that, but because knowledge is partly non-exclusive, there are inevitable spillovers in the process of trade and learning exchange between knowledge subjects [35,36]. Therefore, it is logical that there are spatial spillovers from innovation agglomerations. Previous studies have also confirmed the existence of spatial spillovers in urban land use [37,38]. Therefore, the assumption of inter-regional environmental independence in this study is inconsistent with reality and justifies the use of a spatial econometric model.

In summary, it is clear that China needs to improve insufficient land use, promote innovation and reduce industrial pollution emissions. This article runs through these seemingly separate issues, proposing a four-dimensional approach of human capital, material capital, urban function and governmen<sup>t</sup> to drive land use transition. It also examines whether this land use transition that enhances innovation agglomeration can

reduce industrial pollution. The aim of this study is to test whether a "triple-win" approach to land use transition, innovation and industrial pollution reduction can be achieved in a rational manner. Based on the above analysis, the paper makes 4 hypotheses. Hypotheses H3 and H4 are preliminary hypotheses only. Section 3.2 will illustrate the 4 dimensions of land use transition driven by innovation agglomeration and present further hypotheses. Figure 1 shows the mechanistic route of this study.

**Figure 1.** Mechanistic route.

**Hypothesis 1 (H1).** *Innovation agglomeration helps to reduce industrial pollution emissions on the region.*

**Hypothesis 2 (H2).** *Innovation agglomeration helps to reduce industrial pollution emissions on the surrounding regions.*

**Hypothesis 3 (H3).** *The land use transition in the direction of innovation agglomeration can reduce industrial pollution emissions on the region.*

**Hypothesis 4 (H4).** *The land use transition in the direction of innovation agglomeration can reduce industrial pollution emissions on the surrounding regions.*

The rest of this article is as follows. Section 2 introduces the various research methods mentioned in the study, including the spatial weight matrix, Moran test, spatial econometric model and entropy weight method. Section 3 details the variables of the study and designs the empirical model. Section 4 depicts the spatio-temporal evolution patterns of industrial pollution and innovation agglomeration and the results of the model regressions and performs a series of robustness tests on the conclusions of the paper. Section 5 discusses the findings of the study. Section 6 concludes the paper with a series of recommendations for accelerating innovation-oriented land use transition and thus reducing industrial pollution emissions.
