Risk Identification and Spatiotemporal Evolution in Rural Land Trusteeship

Rural land trusteeship, as an innovative agricultural business model, has played an important role in enhancing agricultural production efficiency and optimizing land resource allocation. However, the model has also revealed many risks in the process of its implementation, posing challenges to its sustainable development. Based on the cases of land trusteeship risk disputes made public by the China Judges and Records Network from 2013 to 2023, this paper uses Nvivo 12 Plus qualitative analysis software to identify and characterize the risks and utilizes the spatial analysis method to explore the spatial and temporal evolution of the risks. The study found the following: (1) Risks of rural land trusteeship can be categorized as market, operational, financial, natural, and contractual risks, with financial and contractual risks being more prominent. (2) The number of land trusteeship disputes gradually increased from 2013 to 2020, reaching a peak in 2020. Subsequently, the number has shown a decreasing trend, which reflects the positive effect of policy. (3) In terms of spatial pattern, land trusteeship risks have a significant northeast–southwest clustering trend, North China and Northeast China being high-risk clustering areas, while South China and Southwest China have relatively low risks. (4) There are significant differences in the spatial distributions of different types of risks, with market and operational risks being highly concentrated in economically active areas, while natural risks are more influenced by the geographic environment.