Zoning and mode selection of rural residential land consolidation based on construction land reduction

Abstract: Rural residential land consolidation is not only the main way to improve the rural construction land use efficiency and farmers' production and living conditions, but also the policy tool to promote the construction land reduction. In the face of the inefficient use of stock land, Shanghai put forward construction land reduction in the whole domain first in China, and Fengxian was the important suburban agricultural region with a large amount of rural residential land. This study took 374 natural villages of 8 towns in Fengxian District, Shanghai City as the example, and ArcGIS technology and analytic hierarchy process (AHP) were employed. Firstly, integrating top-bottom towns domain partition of consolidation potential and bottom-up natural villages classification of consolidation efficiency, the town with greater potential or stronger capacity was prior to consolidate, and the village with inadequate public services or backward education facilities or transportation inconvenience was prior to consolidate. Meanwhile we got the town domain partition and village classification results: The rural residential land area of high potential, middle potential and low potential accounted for 34.6%, 41.9% and 23.5% respectively, and high efficiency, middle efficiency and low inefficiency accounted for 31.2%, 63.0% and 5.8% respectively. Then, overlaying spatially the above results and construction land reduction region inside the concentrated construction area, the area was divided into 5 types: Long distance migration with rural residential land area accounting for 12.1% of the total rural residential land area outside the concentrated construction area, adjusted merging with rural residential land area accounting for 21.5%, reduction reserve with rural residential land area accounting for 22.7%, group reservation with rural residential land area accounting for 43.7%, and vacating and merging involving about 16 villages. Finally, based on the objectives of construction land reduction that were increasing the cultivated land area and optimizing land spatial layout, we got the mode of rural land consolidation: Long distance migration and reduction reserve regions chose reclamation and cultivation mode to promote the construction of clusters of basic farmland; adjusted merging and group reservation regions chose central village construction to increase the construction land index and optimize the land layout; and vacating and merging regions implemented town domain strengthening mode to improve land use efficiency. Land consolidation was a huge project, and the local government should realize the gap between interest driver and actual resistance, balance the macro decision-making and micro operation, and avoid blind and excessive construction land reduction. The research intended to form a gradual consolidation process of arrangement, reservation, and retaining and promote the economical and intensive reduction practices. The study can improve the feasibility of the rural land consolidation, and provide a more comprehensive view of practice for the rural land consolidation.