Study on the Evolution of Land Use Conflicts in the Mountain Terrace System of Southwest China

ABSTRACT Mountain terraces are a typical product of the synergistic evolution and interactive symbiosis between humans and nature. Under the impact of rapid socio‐economic transformation and development, the global mountain terrace system is facing sustainable development crises such as intensified land use conflicts. However, existing research lacks in‐depth and systematic case‐based empirical analysis of the conflict patterns and spatiotemporal evolution characteristics of mountain terrace systems as a unique social‐ecological system from the perspective of land use conflicts. To address this gap, this study takes two typical living cultural heritage areas in Southwest China's mountainous terrace region, Jiabang Township and Xijiang Township in Guizhou Province, as case study sites. The study systematically analyzes the spatiotemporal evolution processes, underlying response mechanisms, and sustainable development characteristics of land use conflicts in mountain terrace systems from 1967 to 2020. The study finds that the overall mountain terrace systems exhibit a trend of continuously escalating land use conflicts and increasingly fragmented system structures. However, conflicts also exhibit different evolutionary trends in different development models. Among them, in Jiabang Township, where ecological terrace agriculture is dominant, land use conflicts show a sound development trend, and the terrace system demonstrates strong resilience and sustainability. In contrast, in areas such as Xijiang Township that focus on ethnic settlement cultural tourism, there is an upward trend of intensified resource competition and escalating conflicts, putting the terrace system at a gradual risk of marginalization. Through a detailed depiction of the evolutionary process and characteristics of land use conflicts in terrace systems, this study provides theoretical basis and practical references for the governance of land use conflicts in terrace systems, the protection of agricultural cultural heritage, and sustainable development.