Characteristics and driving forces of the mixed use of rural settlement land

Mixed land use has been widely expected to realize the diversity of production and living functions, further to promote the primary land use for the housing and workplaces. It is necessary to evaluate the nature and spatial layout of land uses for a better compatible ecosystem. However, only a few studies were focused on the mixed use of rural residential land, in terms of the diversity and compatibility of land use. The purpose of this study is to determine the characteristics and driving forces of mixed land use in rural residential land, in order to synergistically improve the land use efficiency, living environment, and industrial development. Three villages (Tangwei, Guxia, and Fulong) were also taken as the examples in Shipai Town, Dongguan City, Guangdong Province, China. A measuring approach was then proposed to fully consider the variety and compatibility of mixed land use using the integrated field research, Point Of Interest (POI) data capture, Geographic Information System (GIS), and remote sensing. The results were as follows. 1) The variety degree of rural residential land was ranked in the ascending order of Guxia, Tangwei, and Fulong Village. Specifically, the diversity of land use was in the ascending order of Guxia, Fulong, and Tangwei village, whereas, the diversity of non-residential functions on residential land was Guxia, Tangwei, and Fulong village, and the variety of business functions on industrial land was Guxia, Tangwei, and Fulong Village. 2) The compatibility degree of rural residential land was Guxia, Fulong, and Tangwei village. Among them, the compatibility of land use was Fulong, Guxia, and Tangwei Village, whereas, the compatibility of activities was Guxia, Fulong, and Tangwei Village. 3) The mixed use degree of rural residential land was Guxia, Fulong, and Tangwei Village, in terms of the integrated variety and compatibility. More importantly, Tangwei Village presented the higher quality of human settlement environment, and the perfect construction of tourism supporting land facilities, indicating a high mixed use degree of rural residential land. This achievement was greatly attributed to rural tourism, as well as rich historical and cultural resources. Although excellent traffic and location conditions, the commercial land that mixed on the residential land was only distributed on both sides of the road in the Guxia village, indicating a low mixed use degree of rural residential land. Driven by the export-oriented economy of the Pearl River Delta, Fulong Village has fully utilized the land resources and policies, such as industry-city integration and renewal to develop industry, thereby promoting the industrial transformation and upgrading, the centralized layout, and transportation infrastructure, indicating a relatively high mixed use of rural residential land. Consequently, the mixed use of rural residential land can be expected to jointly determined by the diversity and compatibility. The demand for rural industrial development can also be greatly contributed to the diversity and compatibility in the rational layout of land use and business types. The findings can provide decision-making on the village planning, for the coordinated promotion of the industrial development and living environment in rural residential land.