Abstract: In order to explore the effective utilization mode of cultivated land and grasp the cooperative mechanism under the constraint of environment, the dual effects of cultivated land utilization were taken into consideration, which consisted of carbon emission and absorption. The SBM-Undesirable model was adopted to evaluate the cultivated land utilization efficiency of 30 provinces (municipalities, autonomous regions) in China from 2007 to 2016. Besides, based on the matrix of spatial distance squares' reciprocal and Moran's I, the spatial agglomeration of the cultivated land utilization efficiency was discussed from both global and local perspectives. It was shown that the overall cultivated land utilization efficiency was relatively high, of which the average reached up to 0.867, yet different regions showed diverse performance and could be divided into 5 grades. Most of the high-efficiency areas were located in the southeastern coastal area, the western area and the northeastern area, while the low-efficiency areas were mainly situated in the northern coastal area and the middle reaches of the Yellow River. The majority of regions with low efficiency showed redundant inputs and net carbon emissions. There was a certain spatial agglomeration of the cultivated land utilization efficiency within provinces, and the spatial correlation pattern experienced a process of “multi-core distribution” to “one string and one area” to “low pole dominance”. Attentions should be paid to control the unexpected output and optimize the input, strengthen regional cooperation according to local conditions, and explore the path of efficient utilization of cultivated land with regional coordination.

Key words: net carbon emission, cultivated land utilization efficiency, spatial correlation