Spatial-temporal evolution and driving mechanism of rural production-living-ecological space in Pingtan islands, China

With the continuous penetration of global networking and post-industrialism, the island rural spatial evolution becomes an important issue in comprehensive geography. Studying the microscale evolution and driving mechanism of island rural space is of great significance for promoting its reconstruction and revitalizing island rural communities. This paper constructed a classification system of island rural space from the production-living-ecological perspective. Taking Beigang Village located in China's southeast coast as an example, we analyzed the dynamic mechanism of island rural spatial evolution from traditional agricultural space to multi-functional composite space. The findings indicated that the drastic evolution and reconstruction occurred in the production-living-ecological space of Beigang from 2006 to 2021, manifested as the following aspects: production space was expanded to the outward tourist service space from inward agricultural production space, living space was evolved into commercial space from daily space to provide tourism services, and ecological space was constantly compacted and expanded in tourist development construction and ecological redline regulation. The island rural spatial pattern evolution was the result of the game among policy, capital, society, and organization, manifested as internal roles and external feedback of governmental policy guidance, tourism capital incentive, innovation of business philosophy, and grassroots organizational initiative. During the process, evolution characteristics from simpleness to complexity and from singleness to integration were present in island rural spatial functions. Meanwhile, tourism capital intervention was a key element to facilitate island rural spatial commercialization. A crucial way to avoid island rural spatial alienation and realize rural revitalization was to improve rural resilience. Overall, this study offered a model to delve into the island rural spatial evolution in China or even developing countries around the world.