Spatially explicit restructuring of rural settlements: A dual-scale coupling approach

Rapid urbanization has had a profound impact on rural socioeconomic development, which has driven the spatial restructuring of rural settlements. Numerous studies have analyzed the spatial restructuring of rural settlements, yet socioeconomic factors and their impacts on villages and rural settlements have been ignored. This paper implemented a dual-scale coupling approach to identify the restructuring direction of rural settlements in Tingzu Town, Hubei Province, China. At the village scale, a population-land-industry evaluation index system was constructed to calculate the development potential of villages. The advanced gravity model was used to measure the intervillage connections, and K-means clustering was applied to divide the village groups, both approaches were used to identify the central villages. At the patch scale, kernel density estimation and accessibility analysis were applied to identify the spatial distribution characteristics of rural settlements, and rural settlements were classified into nine types based on the analysis of density-accessibility spatial combination characteristics. Four types, including relocation and evacuation, characteristic protection, suburban integration, and agglomeration and upgrading were proposed to restructure rural settlements. The restructuring direction and strategies of each type were determined by combining the influence scope of each central village, delineated by the weighted Voronoi diagram and the actual development needs of rural settlements. This study contributes to our understanding of the relationship involved in the restructuring of rural settlements and is of great practical significance for guiding the optimization of rural settlement layouts.