Maintain ecological security: Analyzing the Impact of the Digital Economy on Green and Low-Carbon Land Utilization

Ting Lei^*

• Southwest University of Political Science & Law, Chongqing, China

Ecological security is an important component of the overall national security outlook. As the fundamental carrier for human survival and development, the utilization mode, intensity and spatial pattern of land directly determine the health, stability and service functions of the ecosystem, and further affect the ecological security of the region and even the world. As a key engine for achieving sustainable utilization of land resources, the digital economy provides a systematic solution for the green and low-carbon use of land. Through the embedding of data elements and the empowerment of intelligent technologies, it has significantly optimized the efficiency of land resource allocation, providing a technical path for enhancing the carbon emission efficiency of land use. This paper selects the panel data of 31 provinces in China from 2011 to 2023 as the research sample, and uses the fixed effect model and quantile model to explore the promoting effect of the digital economy (DE) on the green and low-carbon utilization of land (GUL). The empirical results show that the digital economy significantly promotes the level of green and low-carbon utilization of land, with a stronger promoting effect in the eastern region, followed by the western region, while the effect in the central region is not significant. Moreover, entrepreneurial activity and internet coverage intensify this benefit, proving their mediating effects. The research suggests that the government should strengthen policy coordination and institutional allocation for the digital economy, combine the diffusion of green and low-carbon technologies with ecological compensation mechanisms, optimize the allocation efficiency of land and green and low-carbon technologies, promote the green and low-carbon transformation and upgrading of land, and achieve the goal of land carbon emission reduction while promoting the coordinated evolution of ecological protection and sustainable land resource utilization. Only by deeply integrating "digitalization" into the "greening" process can we achieve a high-quality and sustainable transformation of land resource utilization under the premise of ensuring ecological security, and provide a solid foundation for building a modernization featuring harmonious coexistence between humans and nature.