Abstract
Under rapid urbanization, rural China has undergone a drastic transformation, especially in the metropolis. Revealing the evolution laws of rural settlements is critical for effectively providing references. Although many previous studies demonstrated the transformation laws of rural settlements from multiple scales, few focused on the spatial differentiation within the metropolis. This study constructed the spatial conversion intensity index, conversion structure significance index, and landscape metrics to investigate the spatial differentiation characteristics, classify the transformation patterns, and reveal driving mechanisms of rural settlements in the Pudong district at the township level. The results demonstrated a significant decrease in the size of settlements, and the values decreased from urban-rural fringe to exurban area. The conversion structure of settlements varied within urban-fringe, suburban, and exurban areas. The morphology of settlements became more regular and compact, but to a varying degree. Based on these findings, three transformation patterns were summarized: the rapid disappearance pattern, the physical decay pattern, and the orderly transformation pattern. Further analysis indicated that they were mainly caused by urban encroachment, limitation of geographic conditions, and planning policies separately. These conclusions reveal the spatial differentiation characteristics of rural settlements in the metropolis of developing countries and provide scientific guidance for sustainable rural development.
Highlights
Driving by rapid urbanization and industrialization, most countries around the world have experienced a drastic process of rural settlements transformation (Long, 2014; Jiang G. et al, 2016)
This research aims to address three questions: 1) What are the spatial differentiation characteristics of rural settlements transformation within the metropolis? 2) How to divide the transformation patterns of rural settlements based on spatial characteristics? 3) What are the driving factors and their driving mechanisms for different transformation patterns? This research is expected to provide an empirical study of typical regions, namely the metropolis with strained man-land relations, to enrich the theoretical system of rural settlements transformation in developing countries
The results indicated that the conversion intensity index (CI) had significant
Summary
Driving by rapid urbanization and industrialization, most countries around the world have experienced a drastic process of rural settlements transformation (Long, 2014; Jiang G. et al, 2016) It is more evident in China since the reform and opening up in 1978 (Liu Y. et al, 2014; Liu et al, 2017). The rural labor shortage further resulted in severe farmland abandonment and loss of impetus for rural development (Song and Li, 2020) Under these backgrounds, rural settlements’ spatial structure, morphology, and function have undergone tremendous changes, resulting in a series of decline problems, such as the reduction of rural land-use efficiency, the disappearance of rural characteristics, and the deterioration of the ecological environment, etc. It is necessary to solve various decline problems of rural settlements transformation
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