Construction and development of discipline and major on land consolidation engineering in China: Current situation and prospects

Land consolidation engineering is an important starting point to support the national food security and ecological civilization strategy. The discipline and major related to land consolidation engineering were started earlier in China; however, a complete disciplinary and major system has not yet been established. With the promotion of national rural revitalization and ecological civilization construction, the current land consolidation project is developing towards regional land consolidation and ecological restoration, and higher requirements have been put forward for the discipline and major development of land consolidation engineering. Therefore, this study systematically summarizes the development history and current situation of the discipline and major of land consolidation engineering in China, and puts forward the development direction of discipline and major construction of land consolidation engineering in the future. It has been found that strengthening the training of professionals in land consolidation engineering, is an inevitable requirement to support the industry development of the land consolidation and ecological restoration under the new era of ecological civilization construction. The construction of professional textbooks and courses for land consolidation engineering lags behind, and it does not provide sufficient support for the cultivation of outstanding engineering talents in land consolidation and ecological restoration. The current research on land consolidation and ecological restoration technology mainly focuses on the single territorial space element of mountains, rivers, forests, farmlands, lakes, grasses, and deserts, and gradually begins to pay attention to the application of new technologies based on the green and low-carbon objects. However, there is insufficient research on the integrated system restoration technology including the whole process, multi-element and multi-scale, and the application of modern technologies such as artificial intelligence and big data. In the future, the discipline and major construction of land consolidation engineering should strengthen the following work and content: Pay attention to the study of the essential connotation and core theories of land consolidation projects under the new-era background, and establishing a multi-departmental collaborative governance pattern of land consolidation and ecological restoration. Moreover, promoting the construction of disciplines and majors related to land consolidation and ecological restoration, and establishing a complete talent cultivation system from undergraduate to master's and doctoral levels. Furthermore, the development of green and low-carbon technologies based on natural solution should be strengthened to build a full-process and partitioned-classification land consolidation engineering technology system and application model with green and low-carbon characteristics. This study can provide support for promoting the construction of land consolidation engineering and its relevant disciplines and the development of regional land consolidation and ecological restoration work.