Unraveling rural settlement fragmentation in China: An integrative analysis of spatiotemporal patterns, socioeconomic drivers, and policy strategies

Abstract

Sustainable rural development in China is challenged by rapid urbanization and the resulting fragmentation of settlement landscapes. A critical gap persists in quantifying this fragmentation with integrated metrics that capture its nonlinear dynamics and multifactorial drivers. To address this, we developed a composite Rural Landscape Index (RLI), integrating four fundamental landscape metrics to assess fragmentation across structural and functional dimensions. We applied the RLI to a comprehensive county-level dataset covering China from 1980 to 2020 and used Structural Equation Modelling to elucidate driving mechanisms. Large Language Models (LLMs) were subsequently employed to generate context-aware policy pathways grounded in the empirical results. Spatial analysis indicates that high fragmentation (RLI > 0.8) is concentrated in eastern coastal provinces, particularly northeastern Zhejiang and southern Anhui, whereas the northwestern and southwestern plateaus are characterized by high landscape integrity (RLI < 0.2). Our results further demonstrate that in coastal regions, a 10 % expansion of settlements was associated with a 23.5 % loss in ecological connectivity, representing a nonlinear threshold effect undetectable by conventional indices. The mechanistic model identified key natural and socioeconomic drivers and delineated distinct regional resilience regimes, indicating that moderately fragmented regions hold significant potential for eco-efficiency gains through spatial recomposition. The derived policy pathways, including strategies for settlement clustering and tenure reform, offer actionable, evidence-based insights for mitigating fragmentation. This study provides a transparent, scalable framework that directly connects landscape pattern analysis to actionable policy formulation for sustainable land governance.

Keywords

Rural settlement fragmentation / Rural Landscape Index / Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) / Large Language Models (LLMs) / Sustainable development

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