Impact of Element Flows on the Industrial Land Use Benefit and Land Optimization Strategy: A Case Study of the Shanghai-Nanjing Corridor in the Yangtze River Delta, China

Enhancing industrial land use benefit is important for optimizing spatial arrangements of industrial land and promoting sustainable development. Existing studies mainly focus on element input scale, while the role of element flows remains insufficiently explored, especially at the parcel level. This study examines industrial parcels in the Shanghai-Nanjing Corridor in the Yangtze River Delta, China, by constructing a parcel-company matched dataset for listed manufacturing parent companies. The main findings are as follows: 1) element scales (capital, labor, and technology) are positively associated with industrial land use benefit, with stronger relevance among low-benefit companies. 2) Capital flow shows the strongest and most consistent flow effects, with capital flow intensity (0.2069, P < 0.01) and cash flow ratio (0.1444, P < 0.01) becoming more important toward higher quantiles. 3) Labor flow is insignificant on average (0.0487, P > 0.10) but turns positive in the middle and upper tails (q = 0.20, 0.50, 0.95), while total labor force (0.1964, P < 0.01) and labor composition (0.2483, P < 0.01) remain robust correlates. 4) Technology flow (−0.1525, P < 0.10) is negative and persists across several quantiles, whereas R&D intensity matters only at the upper tail (q = 0.95); total technology (0.1809, P < 0.05) is positive overall and more salient for high-benefit outcomes. This study contributes by providing parcel-level evidence on element flows via a parcel-company matched dataset and by uncovering quantile-specific ‘scale-flow transition’ patterns that would be obscured by mean-based analyses. The findings imply that industrial land policies should move beyond scale-only approaches by strengthening corridor-wide element-flow networks, coordinating land supply with logistics and amenity infrastructure, and adopting stage-specific company-land strategies to improve industrial land use benefit.