The traditional livestock industry in Inner Mongolia has evolved rapidly in response to social and economic transformations during recent decades, resulting in substantial impacts on the rural economy and livelihoods of pastoralists. Improved understanding of these changes and potential drivers may help foster strategies to sustain the pastoral system of this region.

Built-up land sprawl is the most intuitive manifestation and main cause of cultivated land pattern change. Understanding spatiotemporal change and its driving factors in the impact of built-up land sprawl on cultivated landscape eco-security under the urbanization gradient can reveal the nature of cultivated landscape ecological risk caused by urban sprawl and promote the scientific implementation of urban planning and cultivated land protection policies.

With the rapid progress of urbanization, the loss of cultivated land has attracted great attention worldwide, and economic compensation is one of the incentives commonly used by the governments to enhance farmers’ enthusiasm in protecting cultivated land. In recent years, although various economic compensation modes have been implemented by the Chinese government, such modes are still experimental and exploratory. Thus, designing and implementing a national economic compensation mode is urgent to effectively protect the quantity and quality of cultivated land.