Land Use Conflict in the Urban–Rural Interface: Spatial Delineation, Conflict Assessment and Governance Implications

ABSTRACT As land use transitions intensify in the urban–rural interface, conflicts in these transitional zones remain insufficiently understood because traditional urban–rural dichotomies often obscure their spatial complexity, posing growing challenges for land degradation management. This study follows a three‐step framework: interface delineation, conflict assessment, and morphology‐based governance. Using Hunan Province, China, as a case study, this study extracted the urban–rural interface in 2020 based on four classification indicators: night‐time light intensity (NTL), population density (PD), Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI), and administrative divisions (ADM). Land use conflict (LUC) intensity was quantified using a composite index integrating landscape complexity, vulnerability, and stability, while Morphological Spatial Pattern Analysis (MSPA) was applied to characterize spatial morphology of built‐up land. The results reveal that land use conflict is strongly associated with a highly fragmented morphology. The average LUC in 2020 was 0.611, with 73.84% and 10.18% of the interface area classified as considerable and severe conflict, respectively. Built‐up morphology dominated by edge, islet, and branch types, while core zones accounted for less than 40%. Significant differences emerged across interface types: NTL‐ and PD‐based interfaces exhibited the highest conflict intensities and greatest spatial fragmentation, while the NDVI‐based interface showed weaker spatial connectivity, and the ADM‐based interface had the lowest levels of conflict. Using the PLUS model under ecological security (ES) and economic development (ED) pathways, scenario simulations for 2035 revealed limited conflict mitigation under single‐objective governance, with average LUC decreasing by only 0.034 under ES and by 0.010 under ED. Furthermore, significant variations in conflict mitigation were observed across three different functional zones under the two scenarios. In particular, a conflict–morphology dissonance emerged within the agricultural production zones, where the ED scenario reduced fragmentation but intensified severe conflicts. These findings underscore the complexity of land management in the urban–rural interface. Drawing upon the “conflict‐coordination theoretical” model of regional land use transitions, the study highlights the need for designing adaptive, type‐specific governance strategies to reconcile land use conflicts and promote urban–rural integration.