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Abstract
The spatial patterns of rural settlements are important for understanding the drivers of land use change and the relationship between human activity and environmental processes. It has been suggested that the clustering of houses decreases the negative effects on the environment and promotes the development of the countryside, but few empirical studies have quantified the spatial distribution patterns of houses. Our aim was to explore the regional differences in rural settlement patterns and expand our understanding of their geographic associations, and thus contribute to land use planning and the implementation of the policy of “building a new countryside”. We used spatial statistical methods and indices of landscape metrics to investigate different settlement patterns in three typical counties within different environments in Jilin Province, Northeast China. The results indicated that rural settlements in these three counties were all clustered, but to a varied degree. Settlement density maps and landscape metrics displayed uniformity of the settlement distributions within plain, hill, and mountainous areas. Influenced by the physical environment, the scale, form, and degree of aggregation varied. Accordingly, three types of rural settlements were summarized: a low-density, large-scale and sparse type; a mass-like and point-scattered type; and a low-density and high cluster-like type. The spatial patterns of rural settlements are the result of anthropogenic and complex physical processes, and provide an important insight for the layout and management of the countryside.
Highlights
Rural development has been highlighted in the form of policy with the industrialization and urbanization of a country reaching a certain stage
Our objectives are to: (1) compare spatial distribution patterns of rural settlements in different regions; (2) interpret the geographical factors affected by the spatial patterns of settlements; and (3) explore the development of modes suited to regional characteristics
We compared the regional differences of rural settlements by several methods, and explored the geographic associations of settlement patterns
Summary
Rural development has been highlighted in the form of policy with the industrialization and urbanization of a country reaching a certain stage. For China, since the opening up policy of 1978, and the economic development and urbanization that followed, a series of rural problems have come out, including: the shrinking of cultivated land, the inefficient and extensive utilization of resources, small-scale and disorderly distributions of rural settlements, the hollow village problem, etc. The “building a new countryside” strategy was laid out by the central government of China, which expected to solve all of the above problems through coordinating the development of urban and rural areas. Taking the village as a place where local communities live and work, the specific solutions to this policy were realized through centralizing rural settlements, improving infrastructure, and directing developments according to local environmental conditions. To realize the sustainable management of rural areas, a reasonable rural planning is necessary and can reduce the impact on the environment [4]
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