The implementation of new type industrialization and urbanization and agricultural modernization strategies lacks of a major hand grip and spatial supporting platform, due to long-term existed ...＂dual-track＂ structure of rural-urban development in China as well as un- stable rural development institution and mechanism. It is necessary to restructure rural pro- duction, living and ecological space by carrying out land consolidation, so as to establish a new platform for building new countryside and realizing urban-rural integration development in China. This paper develops the concept and connotation of rural spatial restructuring. Basing on the effects analysis of industrialization and urbanization on rural production, living and ecological space, the mechanism of pushing forward rural spatial restructuring by carry- ing out land consolidation is probed. A conceptualization of the models of rural production, living and ecological spatial restructuring is analyzed combining with agricultural land con- solidation, hollowed villages consolidation and industrial and mining land consolidation. Fi- nally, the author argues that a ＂bottom-up＂ restructuring strategy accompanied by a few ＂top-down＂ elements is helpful for smoothly pushing forward rural spatial restructuring in China. In addition, the optimization and restructuring of rural production, living and ecological space will rely on the innovations of regional engineering technology, policy and mechanism, and mode of rural land consolidation, and more attentions should be paid to rural space, the foundation base and platform for realizing urban-rural integration development.
The population density of rural areas is generally lower than before due to rapid industrialization. Spatial optimized reconstruction of rural settlements is the key to rural sustainable development. ...Analyzing the distribution characteristics of rural settlements and their impact has profound implications for rural reconstruction. Several types of spatial distribution of rural settlements, such as clustered, random, and uniform discrete distribution, were found in China with significant regional differences. Rural settlements were denser in the southeastern regions compared to the northwestern regions. In regions such as plains, the spatial distribution of rural settlements was denser and the spatial distribution modes were mainly random and disperse. In regions such as cold alpine areas and desert fringes, the rural settlements density was low and mainly clustered. In the transition zone between hills and mountains, the density of rural settlements was high and the spatial distribution mode was mainly random. Rural settlements distribution was influenced by traditions and the economy, with economic development becoming increasingly influential. Additional factors that affected rural settlements distribution included average distance to main roadway, agricultural machinery, per capita grain production, per capita arable land, population density, elevation, precipitation, etc. Multiple distribution patterns should be used to reconstruct rural spaces in different geographical areas. Typical patterns included radially balanced, central land distribution mode; radially imbalanced distribution mode; multicore central land distribution mode, and corridor balanced and imbalanced distribution modes.
•We examine the spatial distribution of rural settlements in China at counties and town scale.•Rural settlements were denser in southeastern regions than in northwestern regions in China.•Rural settlements distribution was influenced by tradition and the economy, with economic development becoming increasingly influential.•The typical patterns of village-town system for rural settlements optimizing reconstruction include four modes.
Rural restructuring is a process of reshaping socio-economic morphology and spatial pattern in rural territory in response to the changes of elements both in kernel system and external system of ...rural development, by optimally allocating and efficiently managing the material and non-material elements in the two systems. It aims at ultimately optimizing the structure and promoting the function within rural territorial system as well as realizing the coordination of structure and complementation of function between urban and rural territorial system. This paper establishes a theoretical framework of rural restructuring through elabo- rating the concept and connotations as well as analyzing the mechanism pushing forward rural restructuring based on the evolution of ＂elements-structure-function＂, and probes the approaches from the three aspects of spatial restructuring, economic restructuring and social restructuring. Besides, the authors argue that the study of rural restructuring in China in the future needs to focus on the aspects of long-term and multi-scale process and pattern, mechanism, regional models, rural planning technology system and standard, policy and institutional innovations concerning rural restructuring as well as the impacts of globalization on rural restructuring, in order to serve the current national strategic demands and cope with the changes of rural development elements in the process of urban-rural development transformation.
•Traditional agricultural areas of China are experiencing rapid rural hollowing.•Community-based rural residential land consolidation and allocation (RRLCA) can help to revitalize hollowed ...villages.•Participatory planning, decision-making and institutional innovation are important for RRLCA.•More attention should be paid to building local adaptive financing mechanisms for RRLCA.
The accelerated rural hollowing driven by vast and increasing out-migration of rural labors under urban–rural dual-track system has imposed huge obstacles on improving land use efficiency and coordinating urban–rural development in China. Taking Dancheng County in Henan Province as an example, this paper analyzes the status quo of rural hollowing and discusses two typical rural residential land consolidation and allocation (RRLCA) practices in traditional agricultural areas (TAAs) of China. The results show that, Dancheng experienced rapid rural hollowing characterized as the hollowing of rural industries, infrastructure, and residential population and settlements. However, Dancheng has considerable potential and the necessity of RRLCA, for the model-based estimation shows that the potential of increasing farmland by carrying out RRLCA was about 5649ha. The two community-based RRLCA practices show positive effects on the improvement of local living conditions, increment of farmland area and development of rural industries. Their experiences, including self-organized rural planning, democratic decision-making, and endogenous institutional innovation may benefit future RRLCA. Overall, it indicates that promoting community-based RRLCA scientifically according to local conditions could provide an integrated platform for increasing farmland area, developing modern agriculture, promoting new countryside construction, and thus revitalize hollowed villages. On considering the limitations and obstacles of current initiatives, suggestions for future RRLCA in rural China have been put forward.
•Gully land consolidation (GLC) could contribute to the optimization of land use structure and landscape pattern.•GLC could also help to guarantee the ecological security of watershed.•Limited ...development capacity and collective action could restrict local community’s social-economic response to GLC.•Land consolidation should be seen and evaluated in a broader rural development context.•The theory of human-environment system provides new perspective for analyzing the effects of land consolidation.
Exploring the impact of land consolidation on the evolution of rural human-environment system (HES) is of positive significance for optimizing land consolidation model and innovating rural development policy. Taken a typical small watershed in Yan'an city as case study area, this paper explored the impact of gully land consolidation (GLC) on local HES from the perspectives of land use, landscape pattern, ecological security, social-economic response and comprehensive evaluation, based on high-resolution remote sensing image data, landscape pattern analysis and household surveys. The results showed that: (1) GLC could contribute to the improvement of land use structure. The terraces, sloping fields, shrub land and grassland at the bottom and both sides of the gully were mostly converted to high quality check dam land. Some of the shrub land were converted to more ecologically suitable native forest due to biological measures. (2) GLC could also help to optimize the landscape pattern. The average patch area and patch cohesion index of the check dam land increased, which indicated that the function of production improved. The landscape shape index and patch cohesion index of forestland and shrub land kept at a high level, and thus their ecological function was stable. At the watershed level, the fragmentation degree of landscape decreased, the landscape tended to be more diversified and balanced, and the anti-jamming capability of landscape and stability of ecosystem improved. (3) GLC have positive effects on the ecological security. Vegetation cover, ecological environment and capacity of flood control improved significantly, and soil erosion decreased by 55%. And (4) human activities responded to the changes of geographical environment. The scale of agricultural production, agricultural mechanization, diversity and non-agriculturalization of employment increased. However, the structure of agriculture is still unitary, the efficiency of agriculture is still low, and rural development is still relatively lagging. Field investigations showed that insufficient public participation, and lack of leadership and overall planning for sustainable utilization of resources and environment are the main reasons. A ladder model has been proposed for better understanding the impacts of land consolidation on territorial human-environment system in rural China. This paper suggests that land consolidation should be seen and evaluated in a broader rural development context, and more efforts should be made to innovate the rural governance mechanism of “common consultation and collective action”, thereby exerting the comprehensive effectiveness of land consolidation and promoting the transformation development and revitalization of territorial rural HES.
China's rural areas are undergoing considerable spatio-temporal change. To some extent, this change increases the difficulty in our understanding the regional rural development and thus brings about ...challenges for the making of feasible regional rural development policies and strategic planning. This study establishes an index system to evaluate the degree of rurality in China at county level using national census data of 2000 and 2010, and examines the correlationship between rurality index and major socio-economic and geographical indicators. The results of evaluation and spatial analysis show that the rurality index can largely reflect the spatio-temporal patterns of China's rural development, and the Pearson correlation analysis confirmed that counties with high rurality have been marginalized in the aspects of both geographical location and economic development. As such, the patterns of rural development identified by rurality index analysis significantly improve our knowledge on the recent development of rural China. However, this index is less successful in revealing the agricultural production status quo alone. The authors argue that rurality index is an important tool for measuring rural development, and could provide us with valuable information for local planning and the innovation of rural development policies. Furthermore, integrating rurality studies and rural socio-economic analysis can contribute greatly to the making of integrated and regionalized rural development policies.
•Using rurality index to capture China’s rural change based on national census data.•High-rurality counties are marginalized in location and economic development.•Rurality index analysis improves our knowledge on the development of rural China.•Integrated rurality studies contribute to the making of rural development policies.
Rural hollowing is a recent geographic phenomenon that has received significant attention in China, which is experiencing rapid urbanization. It has led to the wasteful use of rural land resources, ...and imposed obstacles on the optimization of land use and coordinated urban-rural development. Rural hollowing has various forms of manifestation, which refers to the neglect and vacancy of rural dwellings, both of which can lead to damage and ultimate abandonment of rural dwellings. Damaged dwellings have different degrees of destruction, ranging from slight, moderate to severe. The evolutive process of rural hollowing in general has five stages, i.e., emergence, growth, flourishing, stability, and decline. Based on the combination of both regional economic development level and its physiographic features, the types of rural hollowing can be categorised as urban fringe, plain agricultural region, hilly agricultural region, and agro-pastoral region. Especially, the plain agricultural region is the most typical one in rural hollowing, which shows the spatial evolution of rural hollowing as a ＂poached egg＂ pattern with a layered hollow core and solid shape. Furthermore, the driving forces behind rural hollowing are identified as the pull of cities and push of rural areas. In particular, this paper identifies contributors to rural hollowing that include rural depopulation in relation to rapid urbanisation and economic change, land ownership and land use policy, and institutional barriers.
With the rapid development of Chinese economy, many negative effects of land use transitions under the pressure of rapid urbanization on local ecological system and environment have occurred. This ...paper examines the dynamic patterns of land use in Tianjin Binhai New Area experienced rapid urbanization, using high-resolution Landsat TM (Thematic Mapper) data in 1985, 1995, 2005 and 2010, and socio-economic data from both research institutes and government departments, and assesses the changes of ecosystem services value (ESV) by drawing a connection between the observed land use dynamics and the evaluation of ESV, based on the latest research of Costanza et al. (2014) and some revisions adapted to the situation of China. The outcomes indicated that, during the period 1985–2010, ESV of the study area decreased by 25.9%, from 12,194 to 9037 billion RMB¥, due to the losses of large quantities of ecological land (e.g., farmland and water body) to construction land. Then, some of the major implications for improving the urban planning of Tianjin Binhai New Area were discussed. The authors argue that it is fundamental to meet the demand of construction land for socio-economic development, meanwhile protect regional ecosystem services function and maintain its stability; only in this way can the new developing area of China realize the sustainable use of ecological resources in the process of rapid urbanization, as well as the integration of economic, social and ecological benefits.
•Land use transitions due to rapid urbanization brought about negative effects on local ecological system.•The ecosystem services value of Tianjin Binhai New Area has decreased substantially since the mid-1980s.•It is fundamental to meet the demand for socio-economic development with minimum loss of regional ecosystem services function.•Improved urban planning may ensure the building of an ecological livable new developing area.
Land system science provides a theoretical lens for deepening our understanding of interactions between social and environmental systems. Synthesis and integration of land system science and land use ...transitions are vital for advancing Global Land Project, and providing a platform for integrating knowledge from multiple fields and for translating explorative research into solution-oriented research. In the context of growing urbanization, the adoption of rural vitalization and urban-rural integrated development strategies has an impact on land use transitions in rural China. Thus, this paper has two major goals. The first is to unite the theory of human-environment interaction territorial system with Chinese rural development strategy to provide a theoretical framework to explain land use transitions against the context of rapid urbanization, including a “conflict-coordination” theoretical model of regional land use transitions, the perspectives of structural change and functional change of land system, and coupling pattern and process to adjust and control land use transitions. The second goal is to deploy the theoretical method in an attempt to advance rural development strategy via adjusting and controlling land use transitions. By using human geography to reinvigorate land system science, this paper calls for integrated theoretical approaches to comprehend land use transitions and associated regional development strategies.
With the introduction of the concept of land use transition into China, related researches have been carried out extensively in the past two decades, which enrich the knowledge of land system ...science. This paper describes the development of research on land use transitions in China from the perspectives of conceptual connotations, theoretical model, research methods, and research progress and prospects. With the in-depth investigation of land use transitions, the concept and connotations of land use morphology are developed and encapsulated as two kinds, i.e., dominant morphology and recessive morphology. The dominant morphology refers to the land use structure of a certain region over a certain period of time, with features such as the quantity and spatial pattern of land use types. While the recessive morphology includes the land use features in the aspects of quality, property rights, management mode, input, output and function. Accordingly, the concept of land use transition is further developed, and the theoretical model of regional land use transitions is established. Thereafter, three innovative integrated approaches to study land use transitions are put forward, i.e., multidisciplinary research framework for recessive land use transition, transect and horizontal comparison. To date, there have been 62 Ph.D. and 166 M.S. dissertations on the topic of “land use transition” in China. During 2002–2019, the National Natural Science Foundation of China has funded 48 research programs on the theme of “land use transition”. As such, the Chinese scholars have adapted the concept derived from western literature to the situations and experiences in China.
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