Abstract
Amid rapid urbanization and globalization, rural zones in many countries have undergone dramatic shifts. Although the future development of cultural landscapes is clear, their planning and management are uncertain. The Chengdu Plain is one of the most prosperous in China, which is home to well-developed irrigation and drainage systems, with the earliest history of planting found in Sichuan Province. The Chengdu Plain’s unique farming landscape is an important human resource that represents the natural integration of the material and spiritual forms in the farming era. This study takes the unique farming settlements in Dujiangyan Irrigation District as the research object and analyzes the culture, human environment, and spatial order of the Linpan settlement based on the system theory. From the hierarchical structure of each individual Linpan settlement to the spatial layout of the Linpan community, the changes in the relationship between humans and land in the farming area are explored to explain the sustainability of the rural cultural landscape. With long-term field research, the rural geographic information database is built as a basis for the identification and classification of Linpan Cultural landscape types. The results show that between 2005−2018, the Linpan of Juyuan Town illustrated a decreasing trend, and about six Linpan settlements disappeared per square kilometer. The change in the type of Linpan landscape is spatially unbalanced, which is mainly due to the difference between regional development and residents’ needs. This study introduces the concept of “demand” and “restriction” in sustainable development to explore a future strategy of maintaining the cultural landscape, which is expected to provide a basis for future policy formulation to protect the traditional rural landscape.
Highlights
Cultural landscapes serve as important material testimony to the interactions and sustainable development between humans and nature, as well as between history and the present; they comprise one of five major research themes in the field of cultural geography
This study examines Juyuan Town in Dujiangyan City to scrutinize the sustainable development of cultural landscapes in rural parts of the Chengdu Plain (Figure 1)
Juyuan Town is selected for the following reasons: 1. Juyuan Town is in the core zone of Dujiangyan City’s elite irrigation district—it has a rich cultural history, which is of great significance for understanding the evolution of Linpan settlements
Summary
Cultural landscapes serve as important material testimony to the interactions and sustainable development between humans and nature, as well as between history and the present; they comprise one of five major research themes in the field of cultural geography. It considers the landscape to be a visible material phenomenon, emphasizing that the landscape styles created by different cultural groups are different [3] In his 1927 article, “Recent Developments in Cultural Geography,” the American geographer, Sauer, re-examines the research content on landscapes and the application of the morphological method. The influence of large-scale urban construction on rural cultural land has drawn attention in numerous countries— in developing ones, and in developed nations where rural cultural landscapes face serious threats These include (1) wastelands, intensive agriculture, and population; (2) the loss of historical culture, local knowledge and traditional features; (3) the disordered expansion of landscape spaces and the fragmentation of rural areas; (4) the depletion of natural resources with a variety of demands and uncoordinated economic growth; and (5) the disturbance of natural ecological processes and the loss of biodiversity. These problems have raised global concerns regarding the development of rural areas [7,8,9,10,11,12,13,14,15]
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