Delineation of and Conflict Coordination in Municipal Territorial Space Functional Zones: A Case Study of Xuzhou, China

Urbanization-driven land use and cover change intensifies the competition for limited land resources, exacerbating spatial conflicts and challenging sustainable development, particularly in rapidly urbanizing regions. This study focuses on the delineation and coordination of territorial space functional zones, addressing conflicts arising from rapid urbanization and the multifunctionality of land resources. By integrating land suitability evaluation, spatial simulation, and spatial overlay analysis, this paper delineates three functional zones and three types of conflicts for 2035: a farmland protection zone, an ecological protection zone, and an urban development zone, and construction–farmland conflicts, construction–ecological conflicts, and farmland–ecological conflicts. A suboptimal equilibrium boundary is proposed to resolve conflicts by balancing the economic output price and the ecological service price of agricultural land against construction land prices. The results show that the optimized urban construction land (632.50 km2) is significantly smaller than that resulting from the planned 1.3-fold expansion, indicating that the original coefficient is unreasonable. Post-coordination, FPZ, and EPZ areas were adjusted to 1136.72 km2 and 295.15 km2, respectively, prioritizing food security and ecological conservation. The findings highlight the need for collaborative urban planning to mitigate spatial conflicts and manage the compounded effects of urbanization and land resource competition. This paper provides a quantitative framework for resolving space conflicts, offering insights for sustainable territorial planning and management.