The Regulation And Evolution Tendency Of Rural Settlement Model In Hunan Province

As one of the most important research content in the fields of rural settlement geography, rural settlement model is as a result of the interaction among natural environment, economic environment, social-cultural environment which rural residents rely on for living in a certain area.It embodies general features and regional differences of formation,development, distribution of rural settlements. There are about 900 million peasants living in rural area, and three million villages and towns are located in China. Different natural environments, production features, living habits, national cultural customs lead to enormous regional differences of rural settlement models. At present, the research on regulation and evolution of rural settlement model is great theoretically and practically significant to construction of the socialist new countryside and the relief of "Three Agricultural" problems, because that China is in a new era in which the new urban-rural relation and rapid urbanization are being formed, the unprecedented policy of construction of a New Socialist Countryside is being implemented. The theoretical and practical significances are as followings :①It broadens the new perspective of rural settlement geography research during the new period, promoting renaissance of rural settlement geography, and realizing the coordinated development between research on rural settlement and urban settlement model;②The innovation in rural settlement model is a important measure to alleviate "Rural Disease" and to improve the quality of inhabited environment effectively;③It is a important basis for making construction plans for new countryside;④The exploration of rural settlement model is a important path to excavate local culture traits. Hunan is a large agricultural province, its rural population accounts for 63.0 percent of the total population. The rural residential area is 8 times of that in urban. Traditional agriculture foundation, vigorous Hunan culture, special land use and terrain and landform pattern lead to morphological diversity, regional differences, and cultural amalgamation. Therefore, the case study of Hunan province shows meaningful typicality and reference.This dissertation is under the direction of sciences of human settlement, sociology, human geography, and regional economics, and the reference of practical experiences and lessons. Based on rural social and economic statistical data, field investigation, questionnaire, remote sensing image and topographic map, and relied on "3S" technology and both qualitative and quantitative methods, and followed comprehensive research thoughts from present static characteristics to historical dynamic evolution, from phenomenon and issues to causes and mechanism, from seeking system law to excavating regional features, from system diagnosis to system regulation ,from problem-oriented to target guiding,.and based on the analysis of historical evolution and present features of rural settlement model in Hunan province, the dissertation reveals its main problems and forming reason, further discusses driving factors and predicts evolutionary tendency, and comes up with adjustment goals, mechanism and strategies.The historical evolution of rural settlement model in Hunan province has come through four phases, namely, equilibrium, wandering, gradual change and revulsion. In each phase, the location, scale, structure and configuration of rural settlement is different. The evolution of rural settlement includes transitional process from traditional villages to modern cities, extending across in space of rural and urban, and tends towards diversification along with developed society, economy and culture. With the guidance and interference of market, government and planning, the tendency will comes forth spontaneous evolution, spontaneous and order evolution and rapid and order evolution. The rapid and order evolution will become the main direction of rural settlement model in Hunan province.At present, there are a lot of issues in rural settlement model in Hunan province, such as inefficient land use, disperse space distribution, out-of-order landscape pattern, short public service, discontinuous history and culture, close outside intercourse, disharmony between human and nature and difficult governance. These issues are characteristic of cross infection and differences. To counter these issues, based on the internal association between rural settlement model and high-efficient agriculture, intensive land use, rural and urban equivalence and ecological human residents, the whole object systems of regulation are put forward in this dissertation. At the same time, the regulation mechanism and optimized approaches are brought forward according to regions and types of rural settlement, and the feasible strategies are presented from the view of policy, capital, market, planning and system.To sum up, this paper makes some elementary innovations:①Under the background of construction of socialist new countryside, the connotation of rural settlement model is interpreted from the view of settlement ; and spatial analysis of present situation and evolution tendency of rural settlement model in Hunan province are researched from the view of regional overall planning, urban-rural harmonious development. The causes of change of rural production, living mode from the view of coordinated development between rural settlement model and urbanization propulsion.The regional types of rural settlement model are classified from the view of "city-suburb-country", "mountain-hill-plain" and "developed-undeveloped-underdeveloped" The new thoughts of optimized regulation of rural settlement model are put forward from the view of harmonious human settlements.②Based on TM Image, by means of radiometric correction, geometric correction and computer interpretation, regional disparities of rural settlement in Hunan are studied by adopting spatial analysis methods in GIS and by introducing landscape metrics.③The base of analysis of development trend in rural settlement model is to grasp accurately new social economic policies and situations. In the new era, the evolution of rural settlement model in Hunan province is affected by traditional factors such as blood relationship, religion, geomantic omen, farming mode, avoiding natural disasters, and utilization of topographic condition. At the same time, factors of new man-land relation such as population spontaneously flowing caused by urbanization and organized immigration initiated by large scale construction, and frequent economic and cultural communication between tribes, administrative re-division of villages, direct influences by agricultural industrialization, agricultural mechanization and traction of radiation of urban economy and culture on rural production and living mode, improvement of infrastructure facilities(road, bridge, power)which guide population span settlement, attraction from urban and rural infrastructure, public space integration to population settlement, etc., will become main driving factors of rural settlement in the future.④The content of regulation of rural settlement model involves location choices, scale guidance, morphology integration, structural optimization. The ultimate goal of regulation is to optimize settlement function, and increase quality of living environment in rural. Rural settlement is made up of mankind, society, and environment. It has a few characteristics, for instance dynamic morphology, time-space overlayed elements, cross merged system. Therefore, the location of settlement function must be based on harmony between human and nature, harmony of people and people, harmony between modernism and history , between urban and rural so as to protect natural environment, inherit historical culture, coordinated elements of urban and rural and respect the farmers' will.⑤The regulation and control of rural settlement model must combine holistic harmony with mdividual characteristic. The emphasis and direction of regulation are different in different region The guidance models are proposed based on areas along river, Dongting Lake Area, the Mountainous Region of Western Hunan and suburb area. Under the direction of equivalent urban and rural,this dissertation refers to practical experience of urban settlement model, distinguishes equivalence from assimilation, seeks for appropriate "degree" in collective and distributive settlement morphology and integration of public space, so as to maintain rural features and advantages and obtains effective approach to solve problems, constructing harmonious rural settlements.