Farming areas are the foundation of China's socio-economic sustainable development. The forward-looking studies on environmental effects of urbanization process as well as its regulation countermeasures from the aspects of land use transitions are of great significance. Previous researches show insufficient performance in the aimed issue of urbanization-driven land use transitions and the systematic analysis from the aspects of “pattern-process-effect-regulation”. Future researches can be arranged by two main lines, namely, the studies from macro scale to medium scale and micro scale, and the studies from theories to practices. Three key issues need to be addressed in the above-mentioned work, i.e., the quantitative identification and simulation of changes on recessive land use morphology, the generation mechanism and regulatory points of environmental effects during transition process, the regulation mechanism and rational mode of regional land use transitions coupling with environment and economic evolution. Future researches on land use transitions and their effects should adhere to the comprehensive direction, reflect multi-dimensional and dynamic perspectives, and explore multi-disciplinary and multi-scale comprehensive analysis means, so as to provide scientific decision-making basis for establishing the dynamic-coupling mechanism of “land-environment-economy” coordinated development as well as effectively promoting integrated urban-rural development.