The rural settlements in poverty-stricken mountainous areas are the "living fossils" of an economic society with the characteristics of spatial dispersion and are slowly changing. Spatial agglomeration is the development direction of rural settlements. In-depth exploration of the spatial agglomeration characteristics and influencing factors of rural settlements in poverty-stricken mountainous areas is a way to provide a basis for rural settlement restructuring. We selected Pengshui County, a national poverty-stricken county in the southwestern mountainous area of China, as the research area. Spatial buffer and kernel density analysis were used to analyze the agglomeration characteristics of rural settlements and influencing factors. The results show that: (1) The rural settlements are small in scale and the space is evenly dispersed. 55.63% of the rural settlements’ sizes are less than 1000 m2, 84.15% of the rural settlements’ sizes are less than 2500 m2, and 92.81% of the rural settlements are within 200 m. (2) The elevation and slope of topographic factors have a significant agglomeration effect on rural settlements. However, the slope direction has no agglomeration effect. 85.41% of rural settlements (52.75% of rural settlements are gathered between 400 and 800 m above sea level) are gathered at an altitude of 1000 m or less, and 77.59% of rural settlements are gathered with a slope of 6~25°. Additionally, there are few rural settlements with a slope of 0~2°. Moreover, the distribution of residential areas has no agglomeration effect on rural settlements. (3) The cultivated land exerts the most significant effect on rural settlements followed by roads and water sources, while the role of urban land is weak. 99.48% of rural settlements are concentrated in the 100 m area of cultivated land. Therefore, in the poverty-stricken mountainous areas in the southwestern mountainous areas of China, convenient farming is the primary condition for production and living. Rural settlements are highly correlated with cultivated land. Rural settlements are scattered and concentrated with the scattered cultivated land. The rural settlements were leaded by the distribution of cultivated land. Less high-quality cultivated land with less slope were occupied or not by rural residential areas’ people.
The economic and social orientation of cultivated land in underdeveloped mountainous areas is obvious. A study of the spatial agglomeration characteristics of cultivated land quality can provide guidance for regional economic and social development. Taking Pengshui County, Chongqing, China as the study area, the spatial agglomeration characteristics of cultivated land quality indexes at county, township and village levels were analyzed by using the auto-correlation analysis method. The results showed that: (1) At different spatial scales, the cultivated land quality index showed spatial agglomeration characteristics. (2) Moran’s I values of the cultivated land quality index at county, township and village level decreased successively, but three indexes still showed significant positive spatial correlation. (3) The spatial scale affects the spatial agglomeration of the cultivated land quality index, and its influence is physical, with a utilization and economic quality grade index from large to small. In underdeveloped mountainous areas, the spatial agglomeration characteristics of township scale and physical quality grade index are the most stable and significant, which can be used as the direct basis for zoning of cultivated land protection and site selection of rural residents’ agglomeration points.
Rural settlements in mountainous areas change slowly and are not easy to measure. Reclamation is an important spatial indication of their demise. To measure the spatial–temporal variation of rural settlements extinction from the perspective of regional reclamation projects, and to provide a reference for the scientific evolution of rural settlements in mountainous areas. Based on the data of reclamation projects in Chongqing, China, from 2017 to 2021, with the number of projects, the scale of construction and the scale of newly cultivated land as indicators, coefficient of variation, gravity center model and spatial autocorrelation were used to analyze the distribution characteristics, gravity shift and spatial pattern evolution characteristics of reclamation projects at different spatial scales. The results show that: (1) From the time dimension, the number of reclamation projects, the scale of construction and the scale of newly cultivated land all showed a downward trend, but the differences in the absolute and relative scales of each index gradually decreased, showing a spatiotemporal equilibrium trend. (2) Reclamation projects showed different agglomeration characteristics at different spatial scales. At the regional level, the reclamation projects are concentrated in the city cluster of the Three Gorges reservoir area in Northeast Chongqing. At the district/county level, the reclamation projects are mainly concentrated in Fengjie County (458), followed by Yunyang County (330) and Pengshui County (305), and the least is Wansheng District (32) with an average of about 165. (3) All the centers of gravity in the moving track of the reclamation project center of gravity are located in the city cluster of the Three Gorges reservoir area in northeast Chongqing, and the spatial distribution is geographically balanced. (4) There is a significant agglomeration in the distribution of reclamation projects at the district and county scales. The high-high agglomeration area was mainly concentrated in the city cluster of the Three Gorges reservoir area in northeast Chongqing, and the low-low agglomeration area was mainly distributed in the city proper of Chongqing. The extinction of rural settlements reclamation is affected by regional nature, economy and society, but the land policy is the main driving force. At the same time, we should carefully treat the counties where the rural settlements are disappearing too fast, so as to avoid the drastic changes in the amount and space of cultivated land associated with them.
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