The Influence of Land Utilization and Urbanization, on Environmental Decay in G-20 Countries: Novel Implications for Sustainable Urban Growth

Abstract

The declining quality of utilized land is due to tectonic forces and exogenic procession, which creates an alarming situation, globally. This research investigates land utilization and greenhouse gas emissions in G-20 countries from 1990 to 2019. The reason behind the data sample from 1990 to 2019 is the availability of data and synchronization of variables for the analytical process. The annual data is deprived of the World Development Indicator. This study contributes to determining the dynamic relationship among total greenhouse gases, land utilization, urban development, economic development, and agricultural land by employing advanced techniques, FMOLS, DOLS and VECM. The conducting analysis tests the long-run relationship's robustness and causal trend after checking cross-sectional dependency and integration level. The Kao corroborated the presence of cointegration while long-run relationship authenticated by FMOLS and DOLS. The VEC model revealed that total greenhouse gases are unidirectionally related to land utilization, urban development and agricultural land. This research is valuable for researchers, agronomists, soil scientists, environmentalists, government, and policymakers seeking the enhancement of environmental quality, reduction of greenhouse gas emissions, reductions in soil erosion and improvement of green production methods that target sustainable development goals.