Analysis of Regional Difference and Spatial Influencing Factors of Human Settlement Ecological Environment in China

Rural human settlement environment, non-agricultural transfer of labour and arable land abandonment in China

Traditional village is the most basic and fundamental unit in the traditional agricultural society of China, and the concept of this human settlement space has been a long-term concern for researchers. This paper analyses the Dai traditional villages in different regions of Yunnan Province in China, and summarizes their ethnic and regional characteristics and the influencing factors. Furthermore, the sustainable development concept is discussed from the methods of human settlement environment, cultural geography and architectural typology. The conclusions are as follows: (1) Dai traditional villages share a common sustainable development concept of human settlements, which is reflected in the environmental, village and residential spaces. (2) The villages reflect the ecological concept of respecting nature, adapting measures to local conditions and harmonious coexistence. (3) The primitive belief and Theravada Buddhism of Dai nationality constitute a “Two-in-One” religious form, which determines the unique spatial pattern and human settlement ideas. (4) In the history of Dai nationality’s migration along rivers, many settlement areas have been formed in similar or even the same environments, and the villages show the original ethnic attributes and different regional attributes. (5) The similarities and differences between ethnic and regional characteristics of Dai villages are mainly affected by the combined effects of “nature, religion, human”, which has also created a unique and sustainable ideology of Dai human settlement environment, until today still has a strong vitality.

The evolution of human settlement, inhabitation, and travel environment theory has experienced several periods as (1) The budding period of “Human Settlement, Inhabitation, and Travel Environment Studies” (1850–1900), (2) The embryonic period of “Human Settlement, Inhabitation, and Travel Environment Studies” (1900–1950), (3) The establishment and preliminary development period of “Human Settlement, Inhabitation, and Travel Environment Studies” (1950–2000), and (4) The comprehensive development period of “Human Settlement, Inhabitation, and Travel Environment Studies” (2000—Present).

China's improving total environmental quality and environment-economy coordination since 2000: Progress towards sustainable development goals

Numerous countries actively consider the human settlement environment and have implemented rural governance strategies to ameliorate the living conditions of rural dwellers. The construction of a rural human settlement environment is an important goal of China’s rural revitalization strategy and improving farmers’ well-being is a key element of China’s policies on agriculture, farmers, and villages. However, whether a rural human settlement environment enhances farmers’ well-being remains untested. By adopting the method of random stratified sampling, this study investigated 1002 farmers inside and outside six nature reserves in Liaoning, China. OLS and ordered probit regression models were used to assess the impact on the well-being and the satisfaction of farmers with their settlement environment around nature reserves from three aspects: the natural ecological environment, the hardware facility environment, and the daily governance environment. The results of this study proved that the construction of a human settlement environment can significantly boost the well-being of farmers. Moreover, the satisfaction towards the natural ecological environment, hardware facility environment, and daily governance environment exerts a substantial impact on the well-being at the significance level of 1%, with a positive sign, showing a stable enhancement role. Among them, the satisfaction with the hardware facility environment was the most essential for improving happiness, with a coefficient of 0.126. A heterogeneity analysis suggests that the positive effect of satisfaction with the human settlement environment on farmers’ well-being within nature reserves was more significant in the natural ecological environment, with a coefficient of 0.244; the hardware facility environment had the greatest positive effect on the well-being of farmers outside nature reserves, with a coefficient of 0.224; and the daily governance environment had a greater enhancing effect on the well-being of farmers both inside and outside nature reserves. Based on these results, it is recommended that governments encourage farmers around nature reserves to participate in wildlife accident insurance, strengthen ecological environmental protection, and enhance the hardware facility environment. Furthermore, local governments should disseminate knowledge of human settlement management to farmers and improve the efficiency of human settlement environment management at the grassroots level. Finally, governments should prioritize human settlement environment development and identify the farmers’ needs of human settlement environment to enhance their well-being.

Assessing the suitability of regional human settlements environment from a different preferences perspective: A case study of Zhejiang Province, China

The total area of land and ocean on the Earth is around 510 million km2, 71% of which is ocean, and 29% percent of which is land with the area of 149 million km2. Human settlement, inhabitation, and travel environment refers to the total of various human survival environment for people’s settlement, inhabitation, and travel, including city, countryside, ocean, etc. These kinds of environment in globe can be generally classified into different categories as ocean, wilderness, countryside, town, county, small-sized city, medium-sized city, metropolis, megalopolis, and outer space. Also, in this book, human settlement, inhabitation, and travel environment is divided into 5 categories of water-net region, valley region, plain region, hilly region, and arid region.“Resource” is the key to the research of human settlement, inhabitation, and travel background. The basic principle of human settlement, inhabitation, and travel environment resource assessment and investigation is the “dynamically” digital expression, description, and assessment by the information carrier material spatial factors (typography, slope, orientation, building, etc.) and surface factors (surface soil, vegetation, settlement, land use, etc.) with multifunction from economy, ecological environment, and social culture to represent human settlement, inhabitation, and travel environment and its characteristics of resource.

The RSEI index has been used widely in ecological environment quality assessment， but its application in high vegetation coverage areas in southern China remains relatively limited. To monitor and evaluate the ecological environment quality in the region more effectively， indices of humidity （WET）， heat （LST）， and dryness （NDBSI） factors and the comprehensive vegetation index mNDVI were introduced to construct the modified remote sensing ecological index （MRSEI） by principal component analysis. Then， the GEE cloud platform and ArcGIS 10.8 platform were used to analyze the spatial and temporal distribution and driving mechanisms of ecological quality in Jiangle County from 2000 to 2020. The results were as follows： ① Compared with RSEI， the average correlation between MRSEI and the principal components was higher. In the three experimental areas， its contrast was increased by 10.538， 2.923， and 8.558， and its entropy was increased by 0.024， 0.046， and 0.025， respectively. ② The overall change of MRSEI in Jiangle County was an increase， with an average annual increment of 0.010. Areas with good ecological quality accounted for the largest proportion of the county， ranging from 33.61% to 38.28%， while the proportion of county areas classified as poor or poorer was about 10%. The proportion of areas defined as stable in ecological change ranged from 42.23% to 59.05%， although this fluctuated significantly from year to year. Moreover， the ecological environment was more prone to deterioration in the southwest and northern regions， and urban construction expanded outward from the central areas. Through the 20 years， the land area with improved ecological quality reached 424.34 km2， indicating a significant improvement in Jiangle County's ecological environment. ③ Land use type and slope were the primary factors influencing spatial variations in ecological environment quality， with annual average precipitation also playing a significant role. The interactions among driving factors led to some degree of improvement， with the interaction between land use type and annual average precipitation having the strongest influence on MRSEI spatial differentiation， contributing 36.1% to the variation. This study provides a scientific basis for ecological environment monitoring and sustainable development in Jiangle County.

Since the reform and opening-up, the society and economy of China has rapidly developing, and the living standard of person has been greatly improved. However, along with the rapid economic development, China is facing a series of environmental problems such as ecological destruction, environmental pollution and land degradation etc.. It is essential to conduct an in-depth research on the existing environmental problems in China. According to the carrying capacity assessment of land and resources, using multi-source remote sensing data such as MODIS data, nighttime light data as well as the socio-economic statistics and meteorological data from 2002 to 2013, the evaluation model of the national ecological environmental quality is established based on the combination of multi-criteria decision-making algorithms and principal component analysis. The assessment model of ecological environmental quality is verified by comparing the evaluation results of two different models: environmental performance index, ecological carrying capacity and eco-environmental quality index. All of results have shown a downward trend. Lastly, the better relationship between the ecological environmental quality and the ecological carrying capacity is established. The R-squared reaches 0.5023 and the correlation coefficient reaches 0.7087, which reveals the reliability and scientificity of the ecological environmental quality assessment model of China constructed in this study. The results show that the quality of ecological environment in China shows a downward trend in general. The area of the eco-environmental quality index between 0.6-0.8 performs a downward trend temporally, and then it decreased to the value between 0.4-0.6. The boundary between 0.4-0.6 and 0.6-0.8 spread southward.

Human settlement, inhabitation, and travel environment studies, as the new discipline concept, is derived from “human settlement, inhabitation, and travel environment” and “ecological and environmental sciences”. Based on the philosophy of trialism, human settlement, inhabitation, and travel environment theory is divided into three elements as human settlement, inhabitation, and travel background, activity, and construction. “Background element” is composed of three elements as resource, environment, and ecology. “Activity element” is composed of three elements as activity behavior, psychological perception, and cultural heritage, taking the objects of 3 basic activities in human settlement, inhabitation, and travel environment as gathering, residence, and work to research how to fulfill the basic needs for human daily life. “Construction element” is composed of three elements as time, space, and space unit, which can be explained as follows. As a new view of philosophy, trialistic methodology objectively reveals the inherit law of presence and development in nature and has been proved by modern empirical natural science. To recognize and analyze the diversity and complexity of objects in trialistic view and to seek for the third elements in antagonistic dualism concept should be an effective method to solve many difficulties in natural, social, and humanity science.

The coordinated development of human settlement environment and economy is of vital significance to urban sustainable development and urban ecosystem health. Urban human settlement and economic systems exist in urban ecosystems, which are a structural complexity. Therefore the research is being challenged by some uncertain factors between human settlements and economic systems. However most of the researches were focused on its determinate objective aspects and qualitative analyses while less concern on the quantitative evaluation of coordinated development of urban human settlement environment and economy, especially little on its uncertain aspect. At present, the urgent task is to study the coordinated development of urban settlement environment and economy in terms of the effect of uncertainty. This study analyzed the uncertain characteristics, which would be confronted at different stages, such as confirming the index categories, their bound values, and their construction rate, etc. According to the actual urban conditions, many construction principles based on uncertainties are put forward and an indicating system for human settlement and economic evaluation is established. Moreover, the application of fuzzy mathematics presents a new method and a calculation model for the comprehensive assessment of the coordinated development of urban human settlement environment and economy. The application of the method and model in Changsha city of China showed that the assessment results can reflect not only the overall coordination degree of the city, but also the mode of interactive mechanism between urban economic system and human settlement environment.

The assessment and prediction of ecological quality can help to quickly and systematically understand the ecological status of World Natural Heritage and assist with developing appropriate strategies to ensure the sustainable and healthy development of that heritage. Using the google earth engine platform, the remote sensing ecological index (RSEI) is rapidly constructed based on principal component analysis to evaluate the spatial and temporal distribution characteristics and the main impact indicators of the ecological environment, and the cellular automata (CA)-Markov model are used to simulate and predict the ecological quality, taking the Libo–Huanjiang karst world natural heritage site as the study area. The results show that: (a) the contribution rate of the four ecological indicators on the first principal component (PC1) are more than 90%. The construction of RSEI based on PC1 are applicable in karst world nature heritage sites and can be used to monitor and evaluate the spatial and temporal variation characteristics of the ecological environment. (b) The mean values of RSEI of the Libo–Huanjiang heritage site during 2000, 2007, 2013 and 2020 were 0.5435, 0.5465, 0.6009 and 0.5101, The overall ecological quality is mainly moderate and good, but in the eastern part of the heritage site the ecological quality is poor. (c) The evolution of the ecological environment quality during 20 years is mainly divided into the development trend of rapidly getting better, slowly getting better, and maintaining stability. (d) In the analysis of the relationship between RSEI and altitude, it is found that the ecological environment quality is mainly inferior, less favorable and moderate in areas with altitudes below 600 m, and there is a positive relationship between ecological quality level and altitude. (e) By analyzing the apparent spatial aggregation between the ecological environment quality, and then simulating the ecological grades in 2027 and 2033 using CA-Markov model, it is predicted that the area of medium and excellent ecological grades will increase in the future, but the ecological environment quality still needs to be improved in the eastern region due to the development of the tourism industry. Overall, the remote sensing ecological index is an effective model for evaluating and monitoring the ecological environment quality of karst heritage sites; the ecological environment quality of the Libo–Huanjiang heritage site is in a steady state of improvement, and the conservation measures of relevant departments are beginning to bear fruit; further coordination between conservation and development is needed to promote the sustainable development of heritage sites and to provide effective solutions for monitoring other karst-like heritage sites.

Human settlements are the result of human activities aiming at satisfying their own living needs. Remote sensing, as a new means of information acquisition, has been widely used because of its advantages of large coverage, strong periodicity and timeliness, and easy access to data. The application of remote sensing images in comprehensive evaluation of human settlements environment can effectively show the changing regularity of urban human settlements in long time series. Urban people based on Remote Sensing Comprehensive evaluation of residential environment has important research significance and application value. Taking Sanya as the research area, this study selected and collected Landsat series remote sensing image data of 1988, 1998, 2008, 2013 and 2018 in this area, fully utilized the index advantages of remote sensing elements, established the index system of human settlements environment, integrated natural and human elements, and used factor analysis method to empower and build a foundation. Based on the comprehensive evaluation method of human settlements environment by remote sensing technology, the results of remote sensing human settlements environment assessment in Sanya City in 1988, 1998, 2008, 2013 and 2018 were obtained. This data set can provide data reference for urban planning and urban construction.

The human settlement environment is the object on which human survival depends. In this study, six single factor suitability models and a comprehensive index model of the human settlement natural environment were established. The six single factor models included topography, hydrology, vegetation, soil, temperature and humidity, and land surface temperature. This study took 1 km × 1 km as the pixel size and relied on the ArcGIS platform to systematically and quantitatively evaluate the human settlement environment of the lower reaches of the Yangtze river. The results show that: (1) From the evaluation results of single natural elements, the topography of the study area is relatively flat, with a small number of hydraulic erosion areas. Besides, there are significant differences between the north and the south in temperature and humidity, hydrology, vegetation, and land surface temperature. (2) In 2015, the most suitable areas of human settlement environment were mainly distributed in the plains along the Yangtze river, the plain of northern Zhejiang, and the Poyang plain. The most unsuitable areas are mainly distributed in mountainous areas, such as the mountain area of southern Zhejiang and Dabie mountain area. Topography and vegetation are the dominant factors for classification. (3) From the perspective of space, the score of the human settlement natural environment in Shanghai is above the average, and the best among the other provinces is Jiangsu province, while Zhejiang, Jiangxi, and Anhui provinces have little difference. From the perspective of time, the overall level of the suitability in the lower reaches of the Yangtze river has been improved from 2005 to 2015, mainly due to the influence of temperature and humidity index and water resource index.

Through the establishment of specific indicators of Hangzhou’s human settlements environment and economic development from 2000 to 2016, this paper explores the contribution degree of each principal component to the indicators and the changes of the comprehensive index in 17 years. Then, in order to analyze the specific relationship between the two development, the VAR model of the two is constructed. Through co-integration analysis, Granger causality analysis and regression analysis, the deep internal relationship between Hangzhou’s human settlements environment and economic development is finally obtained. The results show that the economic development of Hangzhou is not the reason for the improvement of the environment of the human settlements, and the improvement of environment of the human settlements can promote the economic development, and there is a time lag. In view of this causality, it is suggested that attention to the environment of the human settlements should not be neglected while the economy is developing rapidly. Attention to the improvement of the human settlements environment conditions can play a long-term role in promoting economic development.