Transition Characteristics and Drivers of Land Use Functions in the Resource-Based Region: A Case Study of Shenmu City, China

Resource-based regions play an indispensable role as strategic bases for national energy and raw material supply in the global industrialization and urbanization process. However, intensive and large-scale natural resource exploitation—particularly mineral extraction—often triggers dramatic land use/cover changes, leading to a series of problems including cultivated land degradation, ecological function deterioration, and human settlement environment degradation. However, a systematic understanding of the functional transitions within the land use system and their drivers in such regions remains limited. This study takes Shenmu City, a typical resource-based city in the ecologically vulnerable Loess Plateau, as a case study to systematically analyze the transition characteristics and driving mechanisms of land use functions from 2000 to 2020. By constructing an integrated “element–structure–function” analytical framework and employing a suite of methods, including land use transfer matrix, Spearman correlation analysis, and random forest with SHAP interpretation, we reveal the complex spatiotemporal evolution patterns of production–living–ecological functions and their interactions. The results demonstrate that Shenmu City has undergone rapid land use transformation, with the total transition area increasing from 27,394.11 ha during 2000–2010 to 43,890.21 ha during 2010–2020. Grassland served as the primary transition source, accounting for 66.5% of the total transition area, while artificial surfaces became the main transition destination, receiving 38.6% of the transferred area. The human footprint index (SHAP importance: 4.011) and precipitation (2.025) emerged as the dominant factors driving land use functional transitions. Functional interactions exhibited dynamic changes, with synergistic relationships predominating but showing signs of weakening in later periods. The findings provide scientific evidence and a transferable analytical framework for territorial space optimization and ecological restoration management not only in Shenmu but also in analogous resource-based regions facing similar development–environment conflicts.