Spatial evolution process of rural settlement land in coastal areas of Southern Fujian in recent 30 years

Abstract: Scientific identification of the spatial evolution process of rural settlements is an important basis for optimizing the space of rural production, living and ecology in rural revitalization. In this paper, Jimei District of Xiamen city, which locates in the Southern Fujian Province, was selected as a typical study area. Based on the classification and interpretation data of remote sensing images at four time points from 1986 to 2017, the spatial evolution process and mechanism of rural settlement land in Jimei District in recent 30 years were quantitatively identified by using standard deviation ellipse, nuclear density and spatial autocorrelation analysis methods. The results showed that the density of rural settlement could be divided into background area, low density area, medium density area and high density area in Jimei District. There was spatial heterogeneity in the density distribution of rural settlements in Jimei District. The medium and high density areas were concentrated in central areas with good agricultural conditions. The high density areas were far away from the centers of urban and industrial mine. There were more obvious spatial continuity features between the high and low density area. The total area of rural settlements showed an increasing trend year by year. The evolution process of settlements was dominated by correlated expansion. Although the number of patches had decreased, the total area and average area of the settlements continued to increase. The combined impact of correlated expansion and contraction leaded to an increasing difference in the size between large and small settlements. With rapid development of urban-rural integration and rural economy, the hot spots of settlement expansion appeared in traditional agricultural industry concentration areas. With the settlement land around Jimei and Xinglin City transformed into state-owned land, the low-low cluster areas appeared. Combined with analysis of remote sensing image, the contracted settlements were closely related to urbanization and industrialization, and the settlements with good traffic location were more susceptible to urbanization and industrialization. The spatial distribution of contracted patches in rural settlements was random, and the spatial autocorrelation existed in the expanded patches. From 1986 to 2017, the expansion of rural settlements did not generate a signification cold zone, and the hotspot clustering pattern was dominated by high clusters in Jimei District. The basic spatial pattern of settlements remained stable due to the combination of topographic factors and evolution characteristics. It was found that there were spatial differences in the hot spots of settlement evolution in various periods by visualizing the rate and direction of the center of gravity of the settlements in each period. The core density analysis and partial autocorrelation analysis revealed a close relationship between settlement evolution and geographical environment, industrial evolution and urban and rural relationship change, and reflected the driving characteristics and internal mechanism of urban and rural interaction process of rural settlement spatial evolution in different development stages under the background of industrialization and urbanization in Jimei District. The results of this study could provide theoretical and methodological supports for optimizing development layout of rural settlements and coordinating rural revitalization planning and land remediation planning.