Multiscale Evolution Characteristics Of Rural Settlements And Partition Optimization In Jiangsu Province

Rapid urbanization has brought about profound changes in Chinese urban-rural relationship.A large number of rural people have poured into the cities.The inefficient use and idleness of rural settlements are prominent.The vitality of rural communities is gradually weakening.Rural recession has become a common problem in China.How to rationally guide the restructuring of rural settlements based on the regional differentiation of rural areas is an urgent problem that urgently needs to be resolved in advancing the implementation of the rural revitalization strategy.Rural settlements are formed based on the geography,blood,and agricultural production.The evolution and development of rural settlements reflect the special human-land relationship in rural areas,and the spatial correlation between rural settlements and geographical factors provides important basis for planning and reconstructing rural settlements.The existing studies usually focused on identifying the evolution features and mechanisms of rural settlements from single medium-micro scale,ignoring the spatiotemporal differentiation and correlation of rural settlement evolution in different scales,which makes it difficult to fully grasp the scale differences and internal relations of rural settlement evolution.In view of the aforementioned research gap,this paper takes Jiangsu Province as the research area,analyzes the evolution characteristics of rural settlements at the patch,county,and city scales from 2009 to2018 from the perspective of scale,shape and density,and explores the factors that can drive the evolution of rural settlements.Based on the identified driving factors,the rural settlements in Jiangsu Province are divided into different regions,and the optimization strategies are put forward according to the characteristics of each type of region.The main conclusions are as follows:(1)At the patch scale,the change of rural settlements showed a typical feature with large-scale loss and concentration gain is space.Both the total land area and the average patch size of rural settlements increased,and the rural settlement morphology showed a trend of regularization on the whole.The density change of the loss and gain of rural settlements presented a concentration change along the Yangtze River and sea.The driving factors of rural settlement evolution at the patch scale were analyzed by Logistic regression,and it was found that relief amplitude,water accessibility,road accessibility,urban accessibility and town accessibility could all affect the change of rural settlement.(2)At the county scale,the areas with a large decrease in rural settlement were concentrated in southern Jiangsu,while the area of rural settlement increased significantly concentrated in central Jiangsu.The increase in the fractal dimension index of rural settlements presented the spatial characteristics of "Northern Jiangsu into a piece and southern Jiangsu into a point",while the areas where the density of rural settlements increase rapidly presented the spatial characteristics of "Nanjing into a piece,and northern Jiangsu into a point ".This study used a stepwise regression analysis method to analyze the driving factors for the evolution of rural settlements at the county scale,and it was found that changes in per capita food production and land urbanization rates can drive rural settlement changes in Jiangsu Province.(3)At the city level,the area of rural settlements in 6 cities including Suqian and Nanjing decreased from 2009 to 2018,while the area of rural settlements in the remaining 7 cities showed an increasing trend.The fractal dimension index of rural settlements in each city of Jiangsu Province had little change,and the overall shape was relatively stable.In terms of density characteristics,during the study period,only the density of rural settlements in two cities decreased.Compared with central Jiangsu,the density of rural settlements in southern Jiangsu and northern Jiangsu was generally lower.Changes in the per capita disposable income of rural residents,the proportion of secondary and tertiary industries,per capita GDP,population density,population urbanization rates,and land urbanization rates have a impact on changes in rural settlement.(4)Based on the identified driving factors,rural settlements in Jiangsu Province are divided into urban-rural integration area,agglomeration promotion area,elastic development area and relocation-merger area.In the development of urban-rural integration area,it is necessary to strengthen the connection with cities and towns to realize the sharing of resources and facilities and the integration of urban and rural industries,and develop rural tourism.The agglomeration promotion area should maintain its advantages and strengthen the supporting role of leading industries.In the follow-up development of the elastic development area,we could consider developing modern agriculture,so that the industrial development and the return of population form a kind of mutual promotion.For villages with very poor production and living environment in the relocation-merger area,we should consider reselecting the address which is conducive to production and living to carry out remote relocation.For villages where the land can still provide production functions,it should be taken into account that merging neighboring villages of the same type,vigorously developing agriculture,improving the production and living environment in the village,and encouraging the villagers to return to the village for employment.This study would contribute to understanding the spatiotemporal relationship and related factors in the process of rural settlements evolution under socioeconomic transformation period,and providing decision-making basis realize the optimization of rural settlement layout and orderly spatial reconstruction in Jiangsu Province.