Rural Residential Land Transition in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei Region: Spatial-Temporal Patterns and Policy Implications

Highlights

• Put forward four dimensions of rural residential land transition.

• Identify spatial-temporal distribution rules of regional rural residential land transition.

• Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region has shown a trend from rapid growth to slow growth.

• Propose regulation strategies of different functional areas.

Abstract

Rural residential land transition (RRLT) dominates rural land use transition. Therefore, analysing the laws of transition and differentiation of land use is not only the basis for the differential management of rural residential areas but key to the sustainable use of rural land. This study constructs a conceptual model of RRLT using multi-period remote sensing monitoring data based on a comprehensive index method, ArcGIS, and FRAGSTATS landscape pattern analysis, among others. It also analyses the characteristics of the transition extent, transition trend, transition morphology, and transition intensity of rural residential land in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei (BTH) region from 1980 to 2018. The results show that, from a vertical comparison of long time series, the transition extent is characterised by a process of ‘slow growth—expanding start—fast expansion—slowing down’; the transition trend is characterised by an increase in the amount of cultivated land occupied by rural residential land, followed by a large number of rural residential land is reclaimed as cultivated land; the transition morphology is characterised by an increase in mean patch size and degree of irregularity, as well as aggregation; and the transition intensity is characterised by fluctuations in the process of ‘small-scale reduction—small-scale growth—substantial growth—small-scale growth and reduction’. A horizontal comparison of counties in the BTH region reveals a long-lasting and active growth trend in transition extent and transition intensity in the Beijing-Tianjin region, and a gradually slowing trend in the areas around the region. The transition morphology features of the northwest Hebei region are more prominent, and show that the scale of rural settlements is small, the plaques fragmented and irregular, and the layout more scattered. The BTH region should formulate a differentiated transition direction for rural residential areas based on the different functional areas, and play into the agglomeration, scale, and synergy effects of urban agglomerations. It should also coordinate and improve the human–land relationship in rural areas, and construct an orderly and densely distributed pattern of urban and rural spatial development with a reasonable layout and complementary functions.

Introduction

The coordinated development of urban and rural areas is a current focus of social attention and a pressing development conundrum (Liu et al., 2013). At present, the urban-rural relationship in the world's major developed countries has gradually evolved from a single mode of interaction to a deep integration of urban and rural areas, forming a correlation–mutualism relationship between urban and rural areas based on free flow and mutually beneficial networks (Christer, 2004; Adamson et al., 2004; Taylor and Aranya, 2008). Urban and rural policies in developing countries tend to be targeted towards urban or rural areas in different stages (Berdegué et al., 2015). Over the past 40 years, China, the world’s largest developing country and home to a large rural population, has experienced a rapid transformation from a planned to a market economy as a result of economic reform and opening up. Urbanisation has developed at an unprecedented speed (Bai et al., 2014; Liu and Yang, 2015), and agriculture and rural areas have made great contributions to the development of industry and cities (Long et al., 2011). The collision of internal development factors and the traction of external demand have greatly changed the human–land relationship and regional functions in rural China (Liu and Li, 2017; Liu, 2018a). As large numbers of rural inhabitants migrated to urban areas, triggering non-agricultural population transfer and multiple job-holding. And in the absence of rural construction planning and strict land management systems, the ‘hollow village’ has become a widespread reality, where one family owns more than one house, including a newly built house while the old one remains undemolished (Li et al., 2018b). This has created a spatial pattern of outer expansion and inner decay, and resulted in disorderly expansion (Liu et al., 2014). In this context, ‘hollow villages’ in rural areas in China reflect a trend of accelerating development, which stands in contrast to the decreasing rural population and increase in the amount of rural land under construction. This creates huge obstacles to improving land use efficiency and coordinating urban and rural development (Long et al., 2012; Li et al., 2014; Liu et al., 2018). On the one hand, stagnant village development is threatening the sustainability and resilience of village, and leading to village decline, including a series of ‘rural diseases’ (Liu, 2018a). On the other hand, it has already had serious negative impacts on the protection of cultivated land resources, adherence to ecological red lines, urban–rural coordination, and sustainable development.

Overall, China has entered a transition period of eliminating urban-rural dual structure and integrating urban–rural socioeconomic development (Liu et al., 2014). The report of the 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China pointed out that it is necessary to implement a rural vitalisation strategy, prioritise the development of agriculture and rural land, and focus on using land more economically and intensively. At present, 10%–15% of China’s rural residential land is idle (Yun, 2014), and the per capita living area of the rural population is 317 square meters (m²) on average, 2.68 times the per capita construction land area of urban residents (Zhou et al., 2019). It is expected that the rural population in China will continue to move to the cities. As a huge potential for future development, how to properly deal with the potential problems needs to be thoroughly analysed on the current problems of rural land use in China. It is particularly important to determine how to accelerate the rational transition of rural land, optimise the spatial layout of urban and rural land use, and promote the development of rural vitalisation.

Land use transition, as a new approach to the comprehensive study of land-use and land-cover change (LUCC), emphasises changes in regional land use patterns corresponding to the current stage of economic and social development (Long et al., 2018). At present, land use transition research has expanded to cultivated land, urban construction land, rural residential land, rural enterprise land, and other, special areas such as poverty–stricken areas (Xiang et al., 2016) and mountainous areas (Zhang et al., 2018). Rural residential land transition (RRLT) is the core performance of rural human–land relationship (Qiao et al., 2015). Rural residential land generally refers to land occupied by townships and villages without the administrative status of a town, and includes land used by farmers for the construction of houses and other living facilities (Ma et al., 2018). These areas are core gathering places and sites for the social and economic activities of rural collectives and their members. Rural residential land serves as a special geographical space generated by multi-scale and multi-element interactions in rural regional systems. In the process of rural land use transition, changes in the use of rural residential land play a leading role (Long and Li, 2012).

Research on RRLT mainly focuses on the rule of dynamic evolution (Roberts, 1996), quantity change (Johnson and Maxwell, 2001; Marlow and Krupa, 2002), utilisation intensity (Robinson, 2003), driving mechanism (Carrion-Flores and Irwin, 2004), and landscape morphology (Tian et al., 2012), and belongs to the early field of land-use and land-cover change. Given the transformation of social and economic development and the sharp adjustment of rural structures, RRLT research is gradually shifting its focus to the direction and mode of transition (Sevenant and Antrop, 2007; Chen and Xie, 2016), hierarchical structure (Du, 2017), transformations in housing construction (Banski and Wesolowska, 2010), evolutionary simulation (Gong and Yang, 2015), and the coupling relationship with cultivated land (Qu et al., 2019). The measurement of RRLT is mainly based on remote sensing image data, socioeconomic statistics, and field survey data. The main methods used include the landscape pattern index, spatial correlation analysis, gravity model, and complex network model.

Overall, research on rural residential land has gradually shifted its focus from natural attributes such as spatial morphology to economic and social attributes. The content of the research has changed from the physical entity of residential land to the comprehensive study of human living environments and social problems. The methodology tends to be empirical, paying more attention to the combination of theory and evidence, focusing on the use of remote sensing, geographic information systems, and other means to obtain and process data, and then turning to multidisciplinary research. However, instruments for quantifying and localising settlement dynamics and expansion strategies are still missing (Conrad et al., 2015). Existing research on RRLT mostly focuses on the characteristics of a certain aspect of transition, and the dimensions are relatively simple. Long-term, cross-regional, multidimensional, and multi-level system linkage analysis is relatively lacking. Thus, it necessary to strengthen the analysis of differentiated characteristics of RRLT and summarise the laws of transition.

The Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei(BTH)region, as one of China’s three major economic growth poles, promoting the coordinated development of the region in an all-round way is an important strategy at the national level. However, the lack of a coordinated industrial system between population and land in the region, along with the migration of a large portion of the rural population to cities to work (settling largely around Beijing, Tianjin, and Shijiazhuang) has resulted in the weakening of rural enterprises, rural hollowing, environmental pollution, and other serious problems, which are restricting the sustainable development of the region (Yang et al., 2018). Given the BTH region’s important strategic position with regard to national development and non-homogeneous development space, it is important to depict the transition characteristics and spatial–temporal distribution rules of rural residential land. This study aims to (a) construct a conceptual model of the multidimensional transition of rural residential land and elaborate specific measurement methods, (b) analyse the spatial differentiation characteristics and regularity of the multidimensional transition of rural residential land in the BTH region over the past 40 years, and (c) propose targeted strategies for rural residential land according to the characteristics of different functional areas and unbalanced development in the region, while promoting sustainable urban and rural spatial structures. Compared with existing research, this study attempts to construct a more comprehensive research route for the transition of rural residential land use, and to identify the characteristics of spatial differentiation and regularity of RRLT in different stages of economic development through a longitudinal analysis of long-term sequences. The results deepen the theoretical connotations and measurement methods of land use transition, and provide a scientific basis to guide regional rural development planning and land policy formulation in practice, so as to realise rural revitalisation and regional coordinated development.