Elsevier

Journal of Cleaner Production

Volume 205, 20 December 2018, Pages 76-85
Journal of Cleaner Production

How do population decline, urban sprawl and industrial transformation impact land use change in rural residential areas? A comparative regional analysis at the peri-urban interface

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2018.08.323Get rights and content

Highlights

  • Rural residential land use change is always embodied in its internal structure.

  • Regional differentiation of land use changing patterns existed clearly.

  • Rural population decline easily causes land and environmental degradation.

  • Multifunctional land use pattern is attributed to benign industrial transformation and benefits of urban sprawl.

  • Multifunctionality should be encouraged in rural environmental restructuring.

Abstract

By applying an integrated framework, this paper examines the impacts of population decline, urban sprawl and industrial transformation on rural residential land use change at the peri-urban interface. The examination is conducted from the perspective of the spatial structure of rural residential land based on a comparative regional analysis. The results show that the pace and pattern of spatial structure change in three regional areas are quite different: the changing process in mountainous areas is much slower, together with low-density development; conversely, the spatial structure in plains and semi-mountainous areas experiences considerable change, and development is more diversified. This can be explained by the differential impacts of urbanization and industrialization: rural population decline, which often occurs in exurban areas with monotonous economic structures, easily causes land and environmental degradation, as evidenced by large quantities of abandoned land. Nevertheless, suburban areas present a compact and multifunctional land use pattern, which is attributed to benign industrial transformation and the external benefits of urban sprawl (e.g., industrial transfer, infrastructure expansion, and urban-rural migration). Based on these findings, this paper also offers a critical discussion of the limitations of rural residential land use and potential adaptive strategies, arguing that the multifunctionality of rural areas and local village characteristics should be taken into account by Chinese policy-makers to achieve man-environment systems compatible with development and rural sustainability.

Introduction

Urbanization and industrialization, referring to the predominant paths to economic and social modernization, have brought unprecedented changes to rural areas, transforming demographic composition, community organizations, agricultural production, industrial structure, and environmental management (Korten, 1980, Liu et al., 2003, Holmes, 2008, Siciliano, 2012). One of the major outcomes of development under conditions of rapid urbanization and economic growth has been significant changes in rural residential land use (Kiss, 2000, Dumreicher, 2008, Lewis and Mrara, 1986, Yang, 2015, Tian et al., 2017).

Recently, the socio-economic and environmental effects of urbanization and industrialization processes on rural areas, especially rural residential land use, have received a great deal of attention. Siciliano (2012) and Liu et al. (2011) note that rural–urban migration has led to a reduction in the multifunctional characteristics of rural residential land. Steiner and Atterton (2015) indicate that the contribution of rural enterprises under industrialization can be recognized as improving rural land use efficiency. Furthermore, Tania et al., 2001, McDowell et al., 2018 and Long et al. (2014) observe that the environmental effects of rural land use transitions have occurred under the pressure of rapid urbanization on local ecological systems and environments — loss of regional ecosystem services function. Similarly, other studies have been conducted examining the relationships among rural population, rural industries, and rural land use change (Park et al., 1925, Calthorpe, 1993, Ma et al., 2018a, Paul, 2009, Li et al., 2015, Woods, 2012, Tan and Li, 2013, DeMarco and Matusitz, 2011).

These studies have predominantly focused on the socio-economic and environmental consequences of rapid urbanization and economic growth in rural areas or on separately estimating the impact of urban sprawl on rural livelihoods (Clark et al., 2009, Liu and Liu, 2016, Tian et al., 2012, You and Zhang, 2017). Studies analyzing the impacts of rural population change, economic growth and urban sprawl from an integrated perspective are still rare. More importantly, the impacts of rural land use have so far been examined merely in terms of morphological changes in rural residential land. Such studies fail to explain how the structure and function of land use change under conditions of rapid urbanization and industrialization.

Since the adoption of economic reform and the open-door policy in 1978, Chinese rural residential areas have experienced unprecedented change involving, among other things, rural industrial transformation, rural depopulation, and land conversion, prompting call for changes in rural land use in order to sustain local livelihoods (Jin et al., 1990, Verburg, 2000, Marc, 2004, Jones, 2010, Cao and Ma, 2016). Such a dramatic transformation can be characterized as a functional shift from agricultural production activity toward functional integration (involving residential, industrial, commercial, cultural, institutional, and entertainment areas), which is inevitably linked with the spatial structure of the rural landscape (Yeh and Li, 1999, Zhu et al., 2014, Jiang et al., 2015, Yang et al., 2016).

At present, due to irrational planning as well as the incompatibility of the changes in the rural population compared with the changes in rural land use, the spatial structure of rural residential land throughout China is characterized by scattered distribution and chaotic and poor living conditions. Specially, the “hollow villages” phenomenon, a consequence of depopulation and the resulting abandonment of a significant number of buildings and significant tracts of land (Liu et al., 2009, Long et al., 2012, Jiang and Luo, 2014), has led to the creation of vast wastelands and low-density development patterns (Chen et al., 2018). It will be important to reconcile these conflicts so that more effort can be made in rural residential areas to coordinate land use patterns according to the needs of the population, industry and the environment. Thus, an acknowledgement of changes in the spatial structure of rural residential land under the impacts of urbanization and industrialization could do much to help to release inefficiently used land, design rational land use patterns, and promote rural sustainability (Ma, 2004; Marsden, 2010; Ma et al., 2018a, Zhang et al., 2015).

To achieve this, this study attempts to examine the changing patterns of spatial structure of rural residential land using a comparative regional analysis. It also attempts to analyze the impacts of urbanization and industrialization — including rural population decline, urban sprawl and industrial transformation — on rural residential land use patterns. The remainder of this paper is structured as follows. Section 2 describes the theoretical framework used to understand the mechanisms underlying changes in rural residential land use. Section 3 details the source of the sample data and provides a descriptive statistical analysis of the spatial structure of rural residential land. Section 4 discusses the results of the study, and Section 5 concludes the study and discusses its implications.

In particular, the study area is located on the east coast of China in a peri-urban interface of the metropolis of Beijing. As a dynamic area, this region is experiencing industrial transformation, rural residential area loss, and depopulation at an accelerated pace. As a consequence, focusing on this area this makes it easier to investigate the magnitude and the rapidity of rural residential land use change under conditions of industrial transformation.

Section snippets

Conceptual framework

Since China has experienced a social transformation from a traditional agricultural society to a modern industrial and urban society — as well as an economic transition from a traditional planned economy to a modern market system — reform-induced industrialization and urbanization have rapidly altered the physical and human landscapes of rural areas, as evidenced by the substantial rate of rural housing development, rural-urban migration, and agricultural to nonagricultural land conversion, as

Study area

Pinggu District (40°02′ N −40°22′ N, 116°55′ E −117°24’ E) is located in the northeast of Beijing (the capital of China) and is positioned in the northern portion of the North China Plain (Fig. 2). In 2015, the district occupied an area of approximately 107500 ha with a population of 397517 (Pinggu Statistical Bureau, 2015). The economic structure is well-known for its agricultural production base and industrial parks (e.g., Mafang Industrial Park) (Ma et al., 2018b). Its industrial sector is

Spatiotemporal dynamics of spatial structures of rural residential land

Based on the survey results, we obtained the relevant statistics for the spatial structure of rural residential land in Pinggu District. Between 2005 and 2015, the total area of rural residential land shows an overall decreasing trend, from 6180.12 ha to 5713.96 ha. The total area ratio of the five internal land-use types ranged from 7.03: 1.96: 0.52: 0.21: 0.27 (housing land: industrial land: infrastructure land: commercial land: vacant land) to 6.84: 2.06: 0.55: 0.23: 0.32. Housing land and

Implications for environmental management and rural sustainability

Rapid industrialization and urbanization are inextricably bound up with population growth, urban sprawl, and industrial transformation, all of which can be recognized as the impetus to changing rural land use patterns, especially in terms of structure and function. Rural residential land use change has the potential to reduce the rural–urban gap but also to affect the current state of the rural environment and the socio-economic conditions.

Firstly, a large quantity of vacant and abandoned rural

Conclusions

In this paper, we showed that population decline, urban sprawl, and industrial transformation have altered the physical and human landscapes in rural residential areas and that heterogeneous changing patterns of spatial structure in rural residential land have emerged as a consequence. The process of change in mountainous areas has been much slower, together with low-density development of land use; conversely, the spatial structure in plains and semi-mountainous areas has experienced a

Acknowledgments

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Fund of China (Grant No. 41671519, 41401197, 41271535 and 41301616), and Funding Project of Beijing Municipal Science and Technology Commission (Grant No. Z161100001116016).

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