Unveiling the spatial patterns and drivers of urban land use in a mountainous urban agglomeration: evidence from the Chengdu-Chongqing economic zone (CCEZ), China

The spatial pattern of urban land use has been documented for decades. However, the research on the spatial pattern type and drivers of urban land use in mountainous urban agglomerations remain largely unclear. In this paper, the Fuzzy C-Means (FCM) and Integrated Spatio-temporal Nonlinear Regression (ISTNR) were employed to investigate the spatial pattern types and multi-dimensional influencing factors of urban land use in mountainous agglomerations. This study uncovers that (i) urban land use patterns in the mountainous urban agglomeration can be roughly categorized into five types: fractal/complicated large area types, fractal small area types, complicated small area types, simple small area types, and scatter distribution types. (ii) Vegetation cover constrains the scale of urban land, while urban per capita disposable income and infrastructure shape the form of urban land. (iii) Administrative center accessibility and medical accessibility have a clear threshold effect in shaping the spatial distribution pattern of urban land. These findings help urban planners identify key spatial layouts and optimize land use allocation, thereby boosting urban resilience and the efficiency of spatial planning in global mountainous agglomerations