Evaluation and optimization of spatial distribution of rural settlements based on GIS

It is necessary to provide transfer, merging, withdrawal and other activities for land consolidation which is performed for the connecting of rural-urban construction land use in Qingyuan City, Guangdong Province where the contradiction of land uses is sharp. This paper divided rural settlements of Fogang County into five arrangement types with the spatial analysis and statistical function of ARCGIS, according to suitability rank of natural, social, economic and environmental factors and applying the method of minimum limiting factors. The five types were urban transformation type, urban-rural combination type, development type, limiting development type and migration type. Rural settlement buffers were divided into priority rank areas which can be transformed into construction land, according to limiting levels of spatial expansion factors of rural settlement. Applying priority rank areas and the predictive value of rural settlement scale in Fogang County in 2020, different arrangement types adopted different ways to optimize the spatial distribution of rural settlement. The results of optimization were that urban transformation type and migration type are totally transformed into other land uses, urban-rural combination type expands to 1 108.04 hm2, and limiting development type reduces to 753.1 hm2. The purpose of this paper is to provide scientific basis for land consolidation in rural area.