1. Introduction
Rural settlement reconstruction is a process of optimizing rural space and enhancing rural land intensity through the demolition, relocation, and regeneration of settlements. In rural China, rural settlements are not only physical places where farmers live but also important centers of their production activities and important assets of peasant households [1,2]. Therefore, it is necessary to consider the characteristics and demands of farmers in the reconstruction of rural settlements [3,4]. However, the reality is that China’s rural settlement reconstruction practice has long ignored the individual differences of peasant households. A common phenomenon is that regional relocation improves the overall layout suitability and utilization efficiency of rural settlements, but it does not balance the interests and demands of all relocated farmers [5]. For some farmers who give up agricultural production and turn to business or work, this relocation improves their living and travel conditions and is conducive to promoting their own economic development. However, for farmers who still rely on agricultural production as the main source of their livelihood, since the cultivated land is still in its original place after relocation, the farming radius is greatly expanded, especially in some mountainous areas. To meet their living needs during the busy farming season, these farmers often build temporary housing by themselves next to the original cultivated land or directly use the original old houses. This reconstruction mode does not consider the livelihoods of farmers, and it does not fundamentally optimize the layout of rural land. Instead, this process increased the scale of the area under rural reconstruction and reduced the efficiency of land use. At present, China is vigorously promoting rural revitalization. The policy objective is to promote the comprehensive and full development of rural areas, alleviate the imbalance between rural and urban areas, and finally realize the all-around development of farmers themselves [6,7]. Under the policy requirements of rural revitalization, rural settlement space needs to support rural industry and social governance through structural adjustment and layout optimization. In addition, building a diversified rural agglomeration community through the reconstruction of rural settlement space is also an important means to solve rural hollowing, activate rural elements, and provide a platform for urban–rural integration. The problems listed above are obviously contrary to the goals and requirements of rural revitalization. How to meet the differentiated needs of rural households while reconstructing rural settlements is a problem worthy of in-depth discussion.
The development of urbanization and industrialization in China has led to the diversification of farmers’ livelihoods [8,9,10]. Farmers are gradually being divided into groups with different income levels and consumption and living habits [11]. Against the background of government-sponsored rural revitalization and urban-rural integration, this trend of differentiation will become increasingly stronger [12,13]. This means that different groups of farmers will have differentiated needs for rural settlements, which will have impacts on processes as diverse as the relocation and site selection of rural settlements [14,15,16]. With the transformation of rural development, new rural industries have given birth to new demand for land, which has also led to the continuous differentiation and reorganization of rural space. Reconstruction is considered an effective way to promote the agglomeration of rural industrial development, the concentration of housing, and the intensive use of resources and has gradually become an important means of rural revitalization and poverty governance [17,18,19]. At present, research on the spatial reconstruction of rural settlements is quite rich [20,21]. Researchers have systematically explained the connotation, objectives, and mechanism of rural settlement reconstruction from different angles [22]. The case studies of different regions have also produced a large number of practices for research on the methods and models of rural settlement reconstruction [23,24].
There are differences in the guidance for rural settlement reconstruction in different developmental stages, which directly affect the results of the reconstruction plan and the effect of the final implementation of policy [20]. In past research, scholars mainly aimed to improve the suitability of settlements and carried out the relocation or renovation of rural settlements to realize the adjustment of the location and scale of rural settlements [25,26,27]. With a deepening understanding of the function of rural settlements and the needs of diversified rural development, an increasing number of economic and social factors have been taken into account in the reconstruction of rural settlements, such as life cycles, life quality, and social connectedness [28,29,30]. The weights of social and economic factors in the spatial reconstruction of rural settlements have been gradually strengthened. The above research has explained the importance of the individual social and economic attributes of rural settlements, but it still does not fully reflect the individual differences of rural settlements. The demolition and reconstruction of rural settlements are largely affected by farmers’ wishes, which are reflected in the utilization of rural settlements and the individual characteristics of rural households [31]. In addition to land suitability, the economic statuses, levels of utilization, livelihoods, travel costs, and farming radiuses of rural households are important factors for rural households to decide whether or where to relocate [32]. For example, there are great differences in the travel patterns and livelihood types of rural households. Rural households living in the same location have different travel costs depending on the travel mode, so they may have different relocation intentions [33]. Farmers who depend on agriculture require cultivated land more than farmers who mainly work elsewhere, so they are relatively reluctant to move to a place far away from cultivated land [34]. Obviously, a rural settlement reconstruction model that simply considers suitability and does not fully consider the individual differences of houses cannot meet the needs of all farmers. Such models of reconstruction will even destroy the foundations of production and livelihood for some farmers and restrict the sustainability of rural settlement development.
To solve the above problems and fill the research gap, this paper considers the individual differences of houses in rural settlements based on a questionnaire survey in Pingba Village, Chongqing City, in southwest China, and constructs a rural settlement reconstruction framework combining individual differences and land suitability. This framework integrates the differentiated characteristics of houses in rural settlements in terms of concentration ratio, utilization status, livelihood, travel convenience, and willingness to relocate; it also establishes a comprehensive evaluation index and divides rural settlements into different reconstruction types. The objects of relocation and resettlement were subdivided into the houses of each household in the rural settlements. The main purpose is to not only solve the problem of overgeneralization in the suitability of rural settlement layouts but also to meet the differentiated needs of farmers in production or daily life. This study aims to answer the following questions: (1) What impact will individual differences have on the process and results of rural settlement reconstruction? (2) How can the optimization of the rural settlement layout and the improvement of farmers’ production and living conditions be balanced in the process of rural settlement reconstruction?
2. Study Area and Data
2.1. Study Area
Pingba Village is located in Zhongyi town, Shizhu County, Chongqing city, in southwest China (Figure 1). As one of four municipalities directly under the administration of the central government, Chongqing has developed rapidly in recent years, attracting a large number of rural labor forces from surrounding districts and counties to work in the central urban area. At the same time, the rural areas in the northeast and southeast are facing the double dilemma of population outflow and rural hollowing due to the limitations of geographical conditions and relatively lagging socioeconomic development. Pingba Village is a typical village that covers an area of 29.23 km2, with a total population of 1368 people spread over a total area of 14.99 hm2 of rural residential land. Pingba Village is located in northeastern Chongqing. The terrain is dominated by mountains and hills. It is rich in forest resources and has important water conservation functions. At the same time, the ecological environment here is relatively fragile and is an important ecological protection area. Affected by the terrain, the rural settlements in Pingba Village are mainly distributed along mountain gullies, appearing as strips of development, and there are different degrees of settlement scales. There are still many rural settlements scattered on the hillsides at higher altitudes. Pingba Village has a stable geological structure, and no major natural disasters have occurred in history. The main reason for the dispersion of rural settlements here is the terrain conditions. Due to the large topographic relief, the cultivated land in Pingba Village is distributed very dispersedly. Farmers living on traditional agricultural production had to live next to the block and scattered cultivated land, thus forming a scattered rural settlement pattern.
Before 2020, Pingba Village was one of thousands of impoverished villages in China. After eliminating poverty, to promote rural revitalization, the local government vigorously developed rural tourism. Some farmers have begun to engage in tourism through “happy farmhouses” or B&Bs to make a living, but many other farmers still make a primary living by cultivating traditional Chinese medicine and live a traditional agricultural lifestyle. Of course, a considerable number of farmers are also engaged in migrant work. Under the influence of the urban-rural transformation and the diversified development of rural industries, the livelihoods of villagers in Pingba Village have been significantly differentiated. Livelihood differentiation has brought different incomes to different farmers. Some farmers with higher incomes have chosen their own sites to build new homesteads, while others with lower incomes still live in traditional architecture on stilts with wooden structures, many of which date back hundreds of years and have great safety risks. In recent years, the Chongqing municipal government has promoted the implementation of the ecological relocation project, which aims to relocate rural settlements at high altitudes and on steep slopes to low altitudes and relatively flat places. However, due to the limited distribution of cultivated land, the farming radiuses of relocated farmers have, functionally, greatly increased. In the complex environment of these internal and external changes, there is a great contradiction between the utilization of rural settlements in Pingba Village and the actual production and living needs of farmers, which need to be adjusted by means of spatial reconstruction. For the local government, how to optimize the patterns of rural land use while meeting the differentiated housing needs of farmers and promoting modern rural governance and sustainable development is an urgent issue to be solved. We believe that restructuring the rural settlements in this town will provide important information for other similar areas in China.
2.2. Data Sources and Processing
The data of the study consist of two parts. The first part is spatial data, including land-use status, topographical and geological conditions, the locations of rural settlements, towns, clinics, etc. The second part is the survey data of farmers, including the basic information of rural households, settlement utilization, livelihood, travel modes and habits, willingness, etc. Data sources include government provision and field surveys (Table 1). To meet the needs of our study, all land-use types were reclassified into ten types, namely rural settlement, farmland, orchard, forest, grassland, town, other agricultural land, other built-up area, water, and unused land [30]. Field surveys were conducted in all 292 households in two steps. First, based on the remote sensing map and the current land-use map, every time we reached a household, we marked the location and scope of the house belonging to that household on the map. The delineation of the scope includes the homestead, courtyard dam, barn, and other spaces directly related to the residence of the rural household. Second, face-to-face interviews were conducted with the head of the household to obtain basic information on the population, utilization of houses, livelihood, travel convenience, and willingness to relocate. In order to identify the real needs of all farmers, the field survey took peasant households as a unit, covering all 292 peasant households in Pingba Village. The interview was conducted by the participatory rural assessment (PRA) method. After the daily interview, each questionnaire was reviewed and revised by telephone follow-up to modify the incorrect or missing information. After that, a total of 290 valid questionnaires were collected. After the survey, we vectorized the location and scope data of rural settlements through ArcGIS 10.5 and integrated the farmers’ questionnaire data into the attributes of the rural settlement vector map.
The spatial information of rural settlements obtained through field mapping connected the utilization of rural settlements with the individual characteristics of farmers. The scale of rural settlements obtained through the survey was slightly smaller than the land-use data provided by government departments (Table 2). The reason is that the land-use survey data of government departments are relatively concentrated, and contiguous areas are divided according to the boundaries of houses, without considering the spacing of houses and the roads inside the settlement. However, in settlement relocation and reclamation, the scopes of farmers’ houses should prevail. In order to reflect the differences in the utilization of houses within rural settlements and the differentiated residential needs of farmers, it is very necessary to subdivide the research object into each house in the rural settlements. For this purpose, the reconstruction of rural settlements in this paper is based on the data obtained from field surveys and takes the houses inside each settlement as the smallest unit. After this treatment, the rural settlement needed to be reconstructed may be the whole settlement consisting of a group of houses or several houses within a settlement.
3. Methodology
3.1. Evaluation of Land Suitability for Creating Rural Settlements
Land suitability evaluation is the basis of rural settlement reconstruction. As the impact of social and economic factors on the layouts and locations of rural settlements is given more consideration, the evaluation of the suitability of rural settlements has become more comprehensive, including ecological suitability, production suitability, and living suitability. Therefore, a comprehensive evaluation index for rural settlement layouts was established, including physical factors, socioeconomic factors, and excluded areas (Table 3). The selection and standardization of the indicators referred to the existing research [29,30]. Distance-related factors were modified according to the farmers’ actual willingness as reported in the field surveys. Excluded areas include basic farmland protection areas, ecological protection areas, towns, other built-up areas, and waterlogged areas, which are no longer suitable for rural development according to policy requirements. The weights of the dimensions and indicators in the index were determined by the analytic hierarchy process (AHP), and the suitability score of each indicator was equally divided into four grades. On this basis, the comprehensive suitability score of the rural settlement layout in Pingba Village was obtained through a multifactor comprehensive evaluation model, and the higher the value, the higher the suitability.
It should be noted that in mountainous areas natural hazards are also the important factors affecting the land suitability for creating rural settlements, such as avalanches and floods. However, because the geological structure of the mountain range where Pingba Village is located is relatively stable, there is no risk of large-scale mountain collapse. At the same time, the water flow of the river in the village is not large, and it is far from the main stream. Therefore, there is no risk of flood. There is no record of natural hazards in history, so this paper excludes the indicator of natural hazards. Only a few areas at high altitude have certain landslide risk, which has been considered in the geological hazard risk index. The geological hazard data are the landslide occurrence point data assessed by the Shizhu County Government.
3.2. Evaluation of the Reconstruction Urgency of Houses in Rural Settlements with Individual Differences
The utilization and development of rural settlements are a reflection of human–land relationships. Although natural factors and location conditions restrict the locations and distributions of rural settlements, the utilization of rural settlements still largely depends on the behavior and needs of farmers themselves [31]. Due to the differences in household population structures, economic situations, sources of income, consumption habits, and so on, rural settlements show completely different profiles internally and externally [35,36]. For a long time, the villagers of Pingba Village have lived in pile dwellings, a traditional, nationally recognized form of architecture. This wooden house has good ventilation and moisture-proofing functions, but there are also safety risks such as loose building structures and poor fire resistance. With an increase in income, some farmers in good economic conditions have built new houses with reinforced concrete structures, but many farmers still live in these traditional buildings. Therefore, the building and its level of structural risk are important factors that affect the residential function of rural settlements. In addition, with the growth of the rural population, traditional stilted buildings have difficulty meeting the living space needs of growing family populations, and some farmers have begun to expand or build houses by themselves. In this process, the problem of the extensive utilization of rural settlement land has arisen. Especially with the transfer of rural labor to cities, there are many rural buildings that lay idle, resulting in a waste of land resources [37]. The per capita living space area of families and the idleness of rural settlements have an important impact on farmers’ production and life and sustainable rural development.
Livelihood determines production behavior and content and has become one of the key factors affecting the urgency of rural settlement reconstruction. In mountainous villages with scattered plots of cultivated land and relatively inconvenient transportation, farmers who take up migrant work or business activities as the main source of livelihood have low dependence on cultivated land and high demand for good housing locations [38]. These farmers need to move to places with better transportation. For farmers mainly engaged in agriculture, because their plot of cultivated land is mostly distributed around the homestead, it is not suitable to move far away. Meanwhile, the larger the tillage radius, the higher the time cost of production and the more necessary it is to improve the production conditions through relocation. The same phenomenon occurs in the daily travel activities of farmers. For example, the travel convenience and savings in time costs of farmers who own private cars are far greater than those who must use public transit for work. Unlike younger families, empty nesters spend more time going out shopping or seeking medical treatment. Based on physical conditions, the actual travel time costs and the travel modes of farmers reflect the actual convenience of rural settlements, which creates different levels of urgency for farmers facing reconstruction [39,40].
In addition, the concentration ratio is also an important factor affecting the urgency of rural settlement reconstruction. Rural settlements in mountainous areas are scattered, which greatly increases the allocation costs of public infrastructure. Moderately centralized residences are often how rural settlements are optimized in such areas [41]. The reconstruction of rural settlements should guide scattered communities to concentrate in suitable areas [42]. We refer to the standards in the village planning of the Chongqing municipal government and judge the agglomeration degree of each settlement based on the number of rural settlements within approximately 50 m. The smaller the number, the more scattered the distribution of rural settlements and the greater the need for centralized regulation or relocation. Finally, because the reconstruction of rural settlements will inevitably have an impact on the long-term production modes and living habits of rural residents, the wills of farmers themselves are an indispensable factor [43]. The willingness of farmers to relocate has a great impact on the sequence and operability of rural settlement reconstruction, which means that when more farmers are willing to comply, more urgency should be given to reconstruction.
Based on the above considerations, a comprehensive evaluation index for the urgency of rural settlement reconstruction was established. The index system involves 11 indicators reflecting individual patterns of utilization in rural settlements, which comprehensively reflect data including the concentration ratio, the land utilization status, livelihoods, travel convenience, and farmers’ willingness to relocate (Table 4). There are different bases for the standardization of indicators. Among them, the concentration ratio that reflects the degree of agglomeration is graded with reference to village planning and related research [16]. The per capita living space is quantified with reference to the rural homestead construction standards stipulated by the Chongqing government (shall not exceed 30 m2). According to this standard and referring to the minimum living space needs of farmers in Pingba Village obtained through field investigation, this paper believes that the per capita land area of the settlement is more than 30 m2 or less than 10 m2, which indicates a strong need for reconstruction. House safety risk is classified according to the Technical Guidelines for The Identification of Dangerous Rural Houses (Trial) issued by the Ministry of Housing and Urban and Rural Development of China, where the D-class refers to an entire community of dangerous buildings and the C-class refers to a single identified dangerous building. Other indicators are graded and standardized according to the actual situation of the field survey in Pingba Village and farmers’ actual willingness. The weight of each indicator is calculated by the AHP. The value of reconstruction urgency is calculated by a multifactor comprehensive evaluation model, and the higher the value, the higher the urgency.
Because reconstruction urgency can only be used as the basis for arranging the sequence of rural settlement reconstruction, it cannot reflect the specific problems of each rural settlement. Therefore, this paper introduces the obstacle degree model to calculate the obstacle factor sequence of each rural settlement. According to the dominant obstacle factors, we can judge the main problems of rural settlements and the appropriate reconstruction strategies. The formula of the obstacle model is as follows [44]:
(1)
where represents the obstacle scores of the index, and the lower the score, the worse the performance of rural settlements under this index. refers to the standardized value of each indicator, and is the weight of the indicators. Ranking the indicators according to the obstacle score, we can obtain the rank of the relative significance of each obstacle at each rural settlement. According to the worst performance indicators of each settlement, the main problems of rural settlements can be judged.3.3. Reconstruction Framework Combining Individual Differences and Land Suitability
Rural settlement reconstruction can be carried out after the completion of the two evaluation processes above. After the land suitability evaluation, the areas with values less than 0.5 and the excluded areas are both regarded as unsuitable. Other areas are divided into low-suitability areas, medium-suitability areas, and high-suitability areas according to natural breakpoints. Corresponding criteria are applied to the results of reconstruction urgency evaluation, and those with values greater than 0.5 are identified as houses in urgent need of optimization. Therefore, houses in rural settlements are divided into two types: urgent and nonurgent. By the spatial superposition of land suitability and the urgency of reconstruction, we can further divide houses in rural settlements into retained settlements and those targeted for reconstruction. Retained rural settlements are those with high suitability and no urgent need for reconstruction. Other rural settlements require reconstruction. These settlements have various problems that make them unsuitable for survival or development, which need to be optimized through reconstruction.
Retained settlements and rural settlements that need to be optimized constitute the material basis of rural settlement reconstruction, but these broad categorizations are not sensitive enough to reflect the differentiated development needs of rural individuals. After calculating the ranked obstacles of each rural settlement for reconstruction through Formula (1), the rural settlements that need to be optimized can be further divided into rural settlements to be locally rebuilt, rural settlements to be integrated, and rural settlements to be relocated. There is no suitability problem for rural settlements to be locally rebuilt, meaning there is no need to optimize their production conditions or travel conditions through relocation. These settlements mainly have problems such as excessive land holdings per capita, old building structures, or high safety risks. Rural settlements to be integrated are mainly those with high suitability but scattered distribution. The rural settlements to be relocated have poor suitability or high production and travel costs, which need to be optimized through spatial location adjustment. According to their dependence on agricultural production, relocated rural settlements can be further divided into travel-based relocation types and production-based relocation types. Therefore, based on the comprehensive consideration of land suitability and individual differences among settlements, rural settlements are finally divided into five types after three classifications (Figure 2). When implementing the reconstruction of rural settlements, we should not only fully consider the suitability of land for relocating unsuitable rural settlements but also formulate differentiated reconstruction strategies and optimization modes in combination with the individual differences of settlements to optimize the development status of each rural settlement.
4. Results
4.1. Land Suitability for Rural Resettlement
The results of the land suitability evaluation show that the land suitable for rural resettlement in Pingba Village is limited. As shown in Table 5, 55.27% of the land in Pingba Village is not suitable for rural resettlement, and only 8.41% of the land is designated as having high suitability. As a typical mountainous village, Pingba Village is crisscrossed with land of different suitability levels due to the influence of topographic and geomorphic conditions. The unsuitable regions are mainly distributed in the areas with steep slopes and high altitudes on the north and south sides, and the highly suitable regions are mainly distributed in the river valley in the middle and the two narrow valleys on the north and south sides. Under such land suitability conditions, the distribution of current rural settlements in Pingba Village also reflects obvious spatial differentiation characteristics (Figure 3).
We found that, before reconstruction, more than half of the rural settlements in Pingba Village were distributed in high-suitability areas, indicating that, under the complex terrain and location conditions in mountainous areas, rural settlements have shown a trend of agglomeration to high-suitability areas. In contrast, 28.81% of rural settlements are still located in unsuitable areas (Table 5). According to the theory of land suitability optimization, rural settlements in unsuitable areas need to be relocated to suitable areas nearby. After relocation, the original rural settlements need to be reclaimed into cultivated land or ecological preserves to improve the land suitability level of rural settlements as a whole. According to the standard that the per capita land area of newly built rural settlements does not exceed 30 m, these rural settlements can save 3.55 hm2 of rural land after land consolidation. The saved land can be used in secondary and tertiary industry construction or urban construction through index trading to support urban and rural planning.
4.2. Types of Rural Settlement and Reconstruction Scheme
Based on the urgency of rural resettlement, there are 138 rural settlements in Pingba Village that need to be optimized due to their own utilization problems. The obstacles of these settlements are mainly in terms of utilization status, travel convenience, and concentration ratio. After overlaying the results of the analysis of land suitability, we obtained the spatial distribution (Figure 4) and quantitative characteristics (Table 6) of the five types of rural settlements. There are 124 retained settlements, which are mainly distributed in the rural settlement agglomeration area of the valley. These settlements are basically distributed next to the main traffic roads, with flat surrounding terrain and superior location conditions. At the same time, the households involved in these settlements are in a relatively good economic situation. Their houses are new steel-concrete structures, and there is no utilization problem. In addition, in view of the long-term development process, these settlements are already inhabiting a region and have a relatively large scale. The settlement often has its own snack bars and some public facilities, which set a good foundation for further development. Retained settlements are the core of rural settlement reconstruction plans, as they can attract settlements that need to be relocated to gather nearby.
A total of 72 settlements were designated to be locally rebuilt, involving 305 villagers. Such settlements are also mainly distributed in places with good traffic and location conditions. However, different from the retained rural settlements, these settlements either have safety risks due to old buildings or the use area exceeds the standard. Some of them are idle year-round and have low utilization efficiency. The optimization of such rural settlements does not need to be carried out by relocation. In contrast, such rural settlements need to be rebuilt on the original site to solve the obstacles in the poor utilization of rural land. It is worth noting that many settlements to be locally rebuilt are distributed in settlement clusters that have formed on a certain scale. Their transformation and construction can improve the living conditions and land use of the settlement cluster. This means that two rural settlements in the same location will also have different optimization needs due to different individual utilization statuses.
Settlements to be integrated are mainly scattered settlements. Statistics show that there are 22 such settlements involving 116 villagers. Some of these settlements are distributed in places with good land suitability, and some are distributed in places with poor or inappropriate land suitability. However, most of them are in the form of a single courtyard, which means that there are few or no other settlements around. Newly built settlements and retained settlements form large-scale and relatively concentrated settlement clusters. Through this method of nearby integration, a mode of rural settlement reconstruction is established to consolidate and integrate these isolated homesteads (Figure 4D).
In addition to the three types of settlements above, other settlements need to be optimized and reconstructed through further relocation. One type is the travel-based relocated settlement, with a total of 36, involving 123 farmers. This kind of rural settlement land has poor suitability for agricultural development and is mainly distributed on the high mountains and steep slopes on the north and south sides. These residents need to move to a place with better land suitability and location conditions. These rural households are no longer engaged in agricultural production and have low dependence on cultivated land. They are willing to relocate far away as long as they can to improve their family living and travel conditions. Another type is the production-based relocated settlement, with a total of 38, involving 175 villagers. Production-based relocated settlements also have a strong relocation urgency. However, they cannot move to distant places because of their dependence on agricultural production and cultivated land. Long-distance relocation will greatly increase the farming radiuses of their families, which will have a significant impact on their livelihoods. Therefore, travel-based relocated settlements can be moved to the outskirts of the retained settlements in the middle river valley, and production-based relocated settlements are suitable for moving to nearby transportation nodes not far from the cultivated land of the family (Figure 4A,B). In addition, a noteworthy phenomenon is that the dislocation of production space and living space may occur in the process of settlement development. Some rural settlements may have moved to places with strong agricultural suitability, such as low-altitude land, for some reason, but their livelihoods have not changed, and family plots of cultivated land are still located in the high mountains. To avoid adding new rural cultivated land as much as possible, these settlements can adopt a point-to-point method of exchanging space with the reconstructed rural settlements in alpine areas to form a new mode of spatial replacement (Figure 4C).
By means of rebuilding, relocating, and replacing the above five types of rural settlements, the new spatial pattern of rural settlements in Pingba Village can be established. Except for the retained rural settlements, other rural settlements will be newly built according to Chongqing rural construction standards. The per capita land area of the newly built rural settlements should not exceed 30 m2. Compared with the original resettlement plans, 10.34 hm2 of construction land resources can be saved, which is far greater than the amount conserved when only the suitability of the land is considered. In the process of rural reconstruction, several principles need to be further clarified. The first is the principle of optimal suitability. The relocated settlements should be moved to areas that are more suitable by at least one degree on the index than the original suitability to ensure that all rural settlements are located in suitable areas. The relocated rural settlements need to be moved to the retained rural settlement group or form a new settlement group in a high-suitability area. New settlement groups should be guaranteed to have more than eight households. The third is the principle of farmers’ willingness. The determination of the final location and layout of public infrastructure after relocation also needs to further consider the demands of rural households.
5. Discussion
5.1. Implications for Individual Differences in Rural Reconstruction
Compared with typical existing studies [23,29,30,40], this paper not only integrates the influences of natural and social factors but also considers the differentiated statuses of rural settlement individuals in the process of rural reconstruction. The results of this paper show that, under the influence of individual differences, the distribution of reconstructed rural settlements is more complex (Figure 5), and the needs of relocation are also more diverse (Figure 4). Table 7 reflects the changes and differences in rural settlements that need to be optimized after considering individual differences. After considering individual differences, the scale of rural settlements that need to be optimized has doubled, and the number of households involved has tripled. Most of the newly added rural settlements have good land suitability, but their own utilization is poor or there is a conflict between their expected production output and lifestyle. This differentiated status not only reflects the differences in farmers’ needs but also reflects the different expressions of human–land relationships. With the deepening of rural revitalization and the transformation of urban-rural relations in China, the development of rural modern agriculture, tourism services, and other industries will further lead to the differentiation of rural households in production and lifestyles. Under this trend, it is a very important proposition to coordinate and optimize the layout of rural settlements in combination with individual differences and land suitability.
In reality, the reconstruction of rural settlements needs to be achieved through the demolition and relocation of each household’s homestead. Therefore, it is necessary to carry out microscale research with the village as the scope and take rural resettlement individuals as the object. However, this kind of microscale research needs to be based on extensive field investigations, and the cost is high. Therefore, past research on rural settlement reconstruction has mostly been conducted at a large scale, and there are few cases involving the perspective of the village or even the perspective of individual farmers. However, from the perspective of farmers’ all-around development and rural revitalization, this kind of research is necessary. Careful research can alleviate the imbalance that may be caused in the process of rural reconstruction and reduce potential conflict among farmers. At present, China is vigorously promoting practical village planning, which is a unified deployment of rural living space, production space, and ecological space within the scale of the village. The research methods and results of this paper provide an important reference for the compilation of practical village planning. At the same time, it helps to provide a reference for rural space governance and rural social conflict resolution in the process of rural transformation.
5.2. Differentiation Mode of Rural Settlement Reconstruction
Combined with the impacts of land suitability and individual differences in settlements, this paper divides rural settlements within the scope of the village into five types. Different types have different reconstruction needs and constraints, and the five types of rural settlements together constitute three optimization modes: the relocation mode, the integration mode, and the spatial replacement mode (Figure 6). In traditional research on rural settlement reconstruction, no matter what factors are considered, the final reconstruction is basically achieved through the demolition and relocation of settlements. However, these older methods fail to distinguish the differentiated needs of farmers in their livelihoods. Integration and spatial replacement are new optimization modes proposed in this paper. Although traditional research has also proposed the centralization of rural settlements by moving villages and merging sites, it has not been refined to level out the needs of individual farmers. The spatial replacement mode provides a new perspective for the reconstruction of rural settlements, which suggests that, under the influence of farmers’ differentiated needs, there is a two-way process of “concentrating in an advantageous location” and “relocating production areas to more advantageous locations” in mountainous areas.
The differentiation mode of rural settlement reconstruction proposed in this paper is based on land suitability, which is in line with current guidance that suggests appropriate regional agglomeration. In addition, these reconstruction models also consider the practical problems of production and lifestyle at the level of farmers that can meet the housing requirements of different types of farmers. Compared with simple demolition and relocation, the addition of integration and replacement modes makes the reconstruction process of rural settlements within the village more complex and changes the reconstruction results. On one hand, rural settlements have shifted from areas of low or no suitability to areas of high suitability, significantly increasing the number of rural settlements in the latter. On the other hand, the relocation and integration of rural settlements increases the scale of rural settlements in regions with higher suitability, which is conducive to the realization of a new pattern of moderately centralized residency in mountainous villages. There is a noteworthy problem that a complex reconstruction mode may lead to a rise in reconstruction costs, which requires multiparty coordination among the government, farmers, and market players. A feasible solution is to share the costs and benefits of housing construction among funders. This has been verified by experience in the current construction of rural tourism homesteads in many places in China, but further research is still needed.
5.3. Priorities for Further Research
Based on the comprehensive consideration of land suitability and individual difference factors, this paper proposes an analytical framework for the reconstruction of rural settlements at the village scale and verifies the feasibility of this idea through empirical research. The case of Pingba Village shows us a reconstruction process in which scattered rural populations and settlements are concentrated in advantageous areas under the influence of diversified rural development. However, due to the different livelihood strategies of farmers, the process of agglomeration also reflects the differentiation of relocation directions. It shows that farmers who take up migrant work or business activities as the main source of livelihood gathered near the main traffic roads, and farmers mainly engaged in agriculture gathered near the traffic nodes near their contracted land. Different from the villages in plain areas, where rural settlements expand around a center, mountainous villages are greatly restricted by terrain and traffic conditions. They determine that moderate concentration is the best choice for the construction of rural settlements in mountainous areas. The particularity of Pingba Village lies in the obvious differentiation of farmers’ livelihoods. For some traditional agricultural villages, due to the constraint of cultivated land distribution, the degree of agglomeration may be very limited, which requires the exploration of new agricultural development models and rural residential patterns.
There are other priorities for further research. First, the selection and quantification of some indicators of individual differences in rural settlements are based on the specific field survey of Pingba Village. The production behavior and living habits of farmers in different regions and different types of villages may vary, which means that the reconstruction of rural settlements in other regions needs to be adjusted in combination with the reality on the ground. In the future, we need to further enrich the indicators and discrimination bases of individual differences. At the same time, it is necessary to further increase the areas of case studies and comparative analyses. Second, the reconstruction of rural settlements will inevitably have some social effects. For example, the relocated farmers leave the place where they have lived for a long time, and they face changes in living habits and social exchanges as well as problems integrating into new communities [45]. Reconstructed rural settlements bring challenges to rural social governance. Therefore, it is necessary to deeply explore the resettlement mode to adapt to the changes in rural society in the future. In this process, farmers’ willingness, psychology, culture, and other social factors need to be fully taken into account.
6. Conclusions
Rural settlement reconstruction is an important means of spatial governance and spatial planning that ultimately needs to be achieved through the demolition and relocation of many rural household settlements. Therefore, the individual differences of rural households and the actual situation of settlement utilization need to be fully considered in the process of rural settlement reconstruction. This paper established an analytical framework for rural settlement reconstruction combining land suitability and individual differences, which takes into account the characteristics of rural settlements in terms of population concentration, land utilization status, livelihood, travel convenience, and farmers’ willingness to relocate. Then, taking Pingba Village, located in hilly and mountainous areas, as a case study, an empirical study was carried out. The conclusions of this paper are as follows: (1) Compared with the effects of only considering land suitability, the number and scale of rural settlements that need to be optimized in the study area are greatly increased after adding in individual differences. (2) In addition to the constraints of land suitability, rural settlements may also have problems in terms of land utilization, travel convenience, and concentration ratio. After comprehensively considering land suitability and individual needs, the rural settlements in the study area were divided into five types: retained settlements, locally rebuilt settlements, integrated settlements, production-based relocated settlements, and travel-based relocated settlements. Among them, retained settlements are the basis of rural settlement reconstruction. (3) Different types have different reconstruction needs and constraints, and the five types of rural settlements constitute three optimization modes: relocation, integration, and spatial replacement. The combination of the three reconstruction modes can save more land for rural construction. The above reconstruction process not only improves the level of agricultural suitability in rural settlements but also meets the differentiated needs of different farmers for the utilization of rural settlements and their own development. It provides a new perspective for rural planning and rural space governance.
The coauthors contributed to the completion of this article together. Specifically, their individual contributions were as follows: Conceptualization, G.B. and Q.Y.; Validation, Q.Y.; Data curation, G.B. and Y.Y.; Formal analysis, G.B.; Methodology, G.B. and Y.Y.; Supervision and project administration, Q.Y.; Writing—original draft, G.B.; Writing—review and editing, G.B. and Q.Y.; Visualization, G.B. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.
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Thank you to everyone who contributed to this study.
The authors declare no conflict of interest.
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Enlarge this image.Figure 4. Spatial distributions of rural settlements under different optimization types and optimization modes. Note: (A) represents the relocation direction of travel-based relocated settlements. (B) represents the relocation direction of production-based relocated settlements. (C) represents the relocation direction of spatial replacement mode. (D) represents the relocation direction of integrated settlements.
Enlarge this image.Figure 5. Changes in the distributions of different types of rural settlements before and after considering individual differences.
Data sources of the study.
| Content | Format | Sources | Resolution |
|---|---|---|---|
| Land-use database | Vector | Shizhu Bureau of Land Resource Management | —— |
| Geological hazard zoning map | Vector | Shizhu Bureau of Land Resource Management | —— |
| DEM | Raster | Chongqing Public Service Platform of Geographic Information, China | 5 × 5 m |
| Aerial image of UAV | Raster | Shizhu Bureau of Land Resource Management | 1 × 1 m |
| Rural settlement distribution of each household | Vector | Field survey | —— |
| Household data (including utilization characteristics of settlement, livelihood, travel convenience and willingness, etc.) | Excel | Field survey | —— |
Data comparison between the field survey and land-use database.
| Sources | Scale (hm2) | Number of Spots | Number of Households | Headcount of Rural Population Involved |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Field survey | 14.16 | 292 | 292 | 1368 |
| Land-use database | 14.99 | 110 | 292 | 1368 |
Index system of suitability evaluation of rural settlement layout.
| Categories |
Indicators | Weights | Classification Criteria | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 0.75 | 0.5 | 0.25 | |||
| Ecological suitability |
Slope | 0.0927 | <6° | ≥6~15° | ≥15~25° | >25° |
| Elevation | 0.1223 | <500 m | ≥500~1000 m | ≥1000~2000 m | >2000 m | |
| Distance from rivers | 0.0533 | ≥50~100 m | ≥100~500 m | ≥500~1000 m | ≥1000 m or <50 m | |
| Geological hazard risk | 0.1614 | No risk | Low risk | Medium risk | High risk | |
| Conversion cost for land-use types | 0.0704 | Rural |
Farmland | Orchard, forest, and grassland | Other |
|
| Production suitability |
Distance from cultivated land | 0.1250 | <100 m | ≥100~500 m | ≥500~1000 m | >1000 m |
| Distance from the village production road | 0.1250 | <50 m | ≥50~100 m | ≥100~200 m | >200 m | |
| Living suitability |
Distance from town | 0.0488 | <2000 m | ≥2000 m | ||
| Distance from country roads | 0.0690 | <500 m | ≥500~1000 m | ≥1000~1500 m | >1500 m | |
| Distance from provincial roads | 0.0976 | <1000 m | ≥1000~1500 m | ≥1500~2000 m | >2000 m | |
| Distance from clinics | 0.0345 | <3000 m | ≥3000 m | |||
| Excluded areas | Basic farmland protected areas, ecological protection areas, towns and other built-up areas, and waterlogged areas | |||||
Index system for evaluating the reconstruction urgency of rural settlements.
| Categories (Weights) | Indicators (Weights) | Classification Criteria and Values | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 0.25 | 0.5 | 0.75 | 1 | ||
| Concentration (0.1078) | Number of settlements within 50 m (0.1078) | >15 | 8~15 | 3~8 | ≤3 |
| Utilization (0.2803) | Per capita living space (0.0952) | ≤30 m2 | —— | —— | >30 m2 or ≤10 m2 |
| Building structure (0.0670) | Brick concrete structure | Brick wood structure | Civil structure | Timber structure | |
| House safety risk level (0.0787) | No risk | —— | C-class | D-class | |
| Idle condition (0.0394) | Not idle | Partially idle | Seasonally idle | Permanently idle | |
| Livelihood (0.1889) | Family employment type (0.0945) | Pure farmer | Part-time Farmer (Hospitality industry) | Part-time Farmer (Migrant) | Nonfarmers |
| Tillage radius (0.0945) | ≤500 m | 500 m~1000 m | 1000 m~2000 m | >2000 m | |
| Travel (0.3300) | Shopping time cost (0.1383) | ≤10 min | 10 min~30 min | 30 min~60 min | >60 min |
| Medical time cost (0.0871) | ≤30 min | 30 min~60 min | 60 min~120 min | >120 min | |
| Travel mode (0.0549) | Private car | Motorcycle | Commuter bus | Walk | |
| Willingness (0.1427) | Relocation intention (0.1427) | Unwilling | Weak | Medium | Strong |
Spatial differentiation of rural settlements according to land suitability.
| Suitability Level | Land | Rural Settlement | Peasant Household | Rural Population Involved | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Area |
Proportion |
Area |
Proportion |
Number | Proportion |
Headcount | Proportion |
|
| Not Suitable | 16.16 | 55.27 | 4.08 | 28.81 | 52 | 17.81 | 178 | 13.01 |
| Low | 6.19 | 21.16 | 1.20 | 8.50 | 47 | 16.10 | 136 | 9.94 |
| Medium | 4.43 | 15.16 | 1.36 | 9.62 | 49 | 16.78 | 156 | 11.40 |
| High | 2.46 | 8.41 | 7.52 | 53.07 | 144 | 49.32 | 898 | 65.64 |
Spatial differentiation of rural settlements according to different relocation types.
| Types | Area (hm2) | Peasant Household | Rural population Involved | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Quantity | Proportion (%) | Number | Proportion (%) | Headcount | Proportion (%) | |
| Retained settlement | 6.67 | 34.79 | 124 | 42.47 | 650 | 47.52 |
| Locally rebuilt settlements | 4.39 | 22.89 | 72 | 24.66 | 305 | 22.28 |
| Integrated settlements | 1.73 | 9.04 | 22 | 7.53 | 116 | 8.45 |
| Production-based relocated |
3.24 | 16.94 | 38 | 13.01 | 175 | 12.78 |
| Travel-based relocated settlements | 3.13 | 16.34 | 36 | 12.33 | 123 | 8.98 |
| Total | 19.16 | 100 | 292 | 100 | 1368 | 100 |
Data of rural settlements that need to be optimized.
| Scenarios | Scale (hm2) | Number of Spots | Number of Households |
|---|---|---|---|
| Land suitability only | 4.08 | 52 | 52 |
| After considering individual differences | 9.23 | 168 | 168 |
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