Land Use Transition and Its Impact on Farmers’ Well-Being in Resource-Exhausted Areas: Research Progress and Key Issues

Land use transition and its effects on farmers’ well-being are central to the transformation and sustainable development of resource-exhausted areas (REAs). While extensive research has emerged in recent years, there remains a critical lack of systematic synthesis and clarity regarding key scientific issues in this domain. To bridge this research gap, an R-based bibliometric analysis was conducted on an extensive corpus encompassing 8245 papers on land use transition and 931 papers on farmers’ well-being published between 2001 and 2024, systematically investigating the mechanisms of transition, regional transformation dynamics, and the multi-dimensional determinants of well-being. The findings indicate that: (1) land use transition research has evolved from spatial patterns to management strategies, yet it lacks comprehensive regional and multi-scale characterization; (2) although land use is recognized as central to REA studies, the underlying theoretical frameworks require significant refinement; and (3) research on farmers’ well-being has shifted from broad ecosystem services to multidimensional micro-analyses, though the explicit correlation mechanisms with land use remain unclear. Based on these insights, four pivotal directions are identified for future research in REAs: establishing theoretical and analytical frameworks that link land use transitions to well-being under regional development logic; uncovering the spatiotemporal processes and multi-scale driving mechanisms of these transitions; quantitatively measuring their impacts on multidimensional well-being; and developing regulatory policies that balance regional coordination with well-being enhancement. This review provides a robust scientific foundation for optimizing land resources and promoting sustainable human–environment interactions in REAs.