Research on the Resilience Assessment of Rural Landscapes in the Context of Karst Rocky Desertification Control: A Case Study of Fanhua Village in Guizhou Province

Abstract

The ecological rehabilitation project has greatly curbed the serious problem of karst rocky desertification (KRD) in southern China and significantly changed the ecological environment and landscape pattern of the karst rocky desertification control areas (KRDCA). As one of the most important social–ecological fragile areas in the world, rural landscapes in KRDCA still show a strong sensitivity to disturbance. To reduce risks and improve the resilience of landscapes, this paper constructs a framework for assessing rural landscape resilience in KRDCA from the three dimensions of ecology, engineering, and social culture, based on the concept of resilience defined by the United Nations International Agency for Disaster Reduction. Considering the characteristics of rural landscapes in KRDCA, we select typical villages for empirical study. The results show the following: (1) The KRDCA is highly sensitive to natural disasters due to its special dual geomorphic structure characteristics. The disaster preparedness capacity of villages is the key factor determining the resilience of rural landscapes. The analysis of the disaster preparedness capacities of rural landscape structures with different vulnerability characteristics can be used as an effective means of evaluating the resilience level of rural landscapes in KRDCA. (2) Based on the empirical analysis of Fanhua village, which is a typical KRDCA in southern China, we found that the ecological system and engineering system of the village landscape have high resilience, while the resilience of the social and cultural systems are weak. This is due to the fact that the large number of rural population emigration in recent years has resulted in villages being at the key node of the reorganization of the social and cultural value system. The unstable sociocultural value system reduces the ability of rural landscapes to adapt to disturbance or environmental change. The study results could guide improvement strategies for subsequent landscape planning and inspire new ideas and methods for the implementation of rural revitalization strategies and the improvement of landscape resilience in KRDCA.

Effects of habitats in typical karst areas of Guizhou on ultrastructural morphology of Typhlocybinae

“…According to the classification standard of the rocky desertification intensity grade in karst areas, Xiong et al. (2002) divided the rocky desertification grade into six grades (Table 1). The three study areas were classified as follows: Huajiang (moderate to severe rocky desertification), Bijie (light to moderate rocky desertification), and Shibing (without potential rocky desertification) (Xiong et al., 2002).…”

A New Advance on the Improvement of Forest Ecosystem Functions in the Karst Desertification Control

“…Landscape Restoration in Desertification Control, Current Regional Forests and Rural Landscapes Are Found to Have High Fragility and Weak Anti-Interference Abilities, Providing a Reference for Landscape Planning and the Layout of Environmental Protection Karst areas have high landscape fragility and weak anti-interference ability. Therefore, a framework for evaluating rural landscape restoration was constructed from the perspectives of ecology, engineering, and socio-culture, and the constraints of disaster resistance and village cultural values were analyzed [15]. A multi-dimensional plan for the transformation and adjustment of village ecosystem structure to promote the restoration of landscape elasticity and the improvement of production functions was proposed.…”

“…Previous research results have only qualitatively analyzed the impact of a series of ecological restoration policies, such as returning farmland to forests, immigration and relocation, and promoting the development of the forestry industry. Integrating GIS and RS technologies to quantitatively analyze the driving factors of ecosystem changes has become a trend [15,16]. Therefore, further research is needed on the impact of landscape functional zoning, population migration, and rural cultural decline on ecosystem changes.…”

Effects of different grassland use patterns on soil bacterial communities in the karst desertification areas

“…Desertification has long been a major economic, social, and environmental issue of concern to many countries and regions of the world (Oldroyd and Leyser, 2020). Karst desertification, which is similar to desertified landscapes, has attracted much attention from the international community (Xiong et al, 2002). It has been shown that the establishment of artificial grasslands is an important initiative to rapidly repair the damaged ecological environment of rocky desertification (Wang et al, 2019), which is of great significance to promote ecological reconstruction and economic development (Fang et al, 2018;Xin et al, 2020;Bai and Cotrufo, 2022).…”