Research On Social Vulnerability Of Urban Fringe And Adaptation Of Land-lost Households

Since the 21st century,the urbanization process in China has been accelerating.The urban built-up area in China has increased from 22,400 km2 in 2000 to 52,100 km2 in 2015,with an annual growth rate of 5.79%.In this process,the urban fringe is the main area of urban spatial growth.To increase land supply and achieve urban spatial expansion through the expropriation of farmlands in urban fringe has become the universal pattern of China's rapid urbanization.The urban fringe,a transition zone between city and countryside,is an area with the most intense,the most profound and the most rapid changes in the process of urbanization,having the prominent characteristics of instability and sensitivity.In the face of rapid urbanization and a series of changes caused by it,the interaction between human and environment in urban fringe has become increasingly intense.Plus urban fringe is not adaptive to frequent conversion in the structure and function,leading to concentration of social problems and emergence of vulnerable groups represented by land-lost farmers.With the continuous progress of China's urbanization for some time to come,it is difficult to avoid the space unrest in urban fringe.How to mitigate the external disturbance and adjust the internal structure and function to adapt to the adverse impact of urbanization is an important realistic problem to realize sustainable development of the urban fringe.Social vulnerability analysis tool,which is on the basis of identification of disturbance factors,focusing on optimizing and regulating the internal property,structure and function of the system that leads to vulnerability,and keeping the system stable through adaptive adjustment,has become the research hotspot in the field of sustainable science.It provides a new research paradigm for reducing vulnerability of urban fringe,improving adaptive capacity of vulnerable groups,and building sustainable social and spatial organization.Based on the practical and theoretical background,the "social vulnerability-adaptation"integrated framework is applied to the research on urban fringe,taking xi'an as the study area,according to the research route of "identification of key disturbance factor-assessment of social vulnerability-formation mechanism of social vulnerability-adaptation analysis-adaptive management countermeasures".Firstly,the paper summarizes the concepts,theoretical models and research perspectives of social vulnerability and adaptation,and constructs the framework of "social vulnerability-adaptation".Secondly,on the basis of defining the scope of Xi'an urban fringe,the main disturbance factor is identified and the characteristics of social vulnerability are analyzed in depth.Thirdly,through building social vulnerability assessment index system and assessment model,social vulnerability assessment is carried out from two scales of subdistricts and land-lost households,aiming to identify highly vulnerable area and groups,explore key influencing factors and formation mechanism of social vulnerability at different scales,and discuss the scale effect based on the nested analysis of social vulnerability at different scales.Fourth,based on classification of adaptation modes of land-lost households under the disturbance of rapid urbanization,the paper assesses adaptive capacity of different types of land-lost households,revealing adaptation obstacles from coordination of government's planned adaptation and land-lost households' autonomous adaptation,and exploring the association between social vulnerability and adaptation.Finally,the paper puts forward adaptive management countermeasures to promote orderly transformation of urban fringe and improve adaptive ability of land-lost farmers,providing scientific support and decision-making basis for the harmonious and healthy development of urbanization.The main conclusions of the paper are as follows:1.The disturbance of rapid urbanization leads to a series of chain changes in urban fringe,such as land use change,physical space succession,social structure change,residential space transformation and farmers' identity transformation.The disturbance makes profound effect on social system in urban fringe,which leads to changes of the structure,function,pattern and process of it,increasing the instability and resulting in a serious decline in risk resistance of the urban fringe.In this case,the urban fringe has become a concentrated and high incidence area of social problems and social contradictions,such as land use conflicts,widening gap between rich and poor,problems of land-lost farmers etc.In short,the rapid urbanization is the most serious disturbance to urban fringe,being the direct cause of adverse effects and key risks,therefore can be considered as the key disturbance factor.2.Facing the disturbance of rapid urbanization,the social system in the urban fringe of Xi'an has entered a period of rapid transition,with risks and social contradictions increasing rapidly.The urban fringe is characterized by obvious social vulnerability,reflected in the social groups of the land-lost farmers who are most affected by urbanization.The analysis of characteristics of social vulnerability in urban fringe is carried out from the social system and the social groups of land-lost farmers.The vulnerability characteristics of social system are highlighted in the two aspects of innate instability and high sensitivity,poor adaptive and coping ability.The social vulnerability characteristics of land-lost farmers mainly include severe unemployment problem,lack of social rights and interests,poor urban adaptation and serious social harm.3.The exposure pattern of subdistricts in Xi'an urban fringe is gradually slowing down from the center,and the distance to the center of the city has a prominent effect on the spatial distribution of exposure.High sensitivity and low exposure,as well as low sensitivity and high exposure have similar characteristics in spatial terms.Sensitivity of subdistricts with obvious rural characteristics is relatively high.Affected by non-spatial factors,the spatial regularity of adaptive capacity is not obvious,which is mainly affected by urbanization on the time scale.Under the combined effects of exposure,sensitivity and adaptive capacity,the degree of social vulnerability and its spatial distribution are imbalanced.The units of high social vulnerability indexes are Wangsi,Doumen and Dazhao subdistricts.The units of low social vulnerability indexes are distributed in the inner of urban fringe,while the units of middle social vulnerability indexes are dispersed on the periphery of urban fringe.The overall vulnerability of land-lost households is moderate,demonstrating remarkable structural differences.There are significant differences among different types of land-lost households.Social vulnerability of households whose householders are the middle-aged is higher than that of the young and the elderly.Social vulnerability of land-lost households increases with the expansion of family size.Social vulnerability of land-lost households whose livelihoods depend on short-term employment is the highest,while social vulnerability of type of self-employment is the lowest.Social vulnerability increases at first,then decreases over time,presenting inversed-U shape.Social vulnerability of land-lost households whose farmland was expropriated for infrastructure construction is the highest.The diversity of ways of land expropriation compensation and allocation may significantly reduce social vulnerability of land-lost households.4.The change of land use pattern and landscape is the direct influencing factor for social vulnerability of subdistricts in urban fringe.Moreover,the discrepancy of social transformation of different subdistricts exacerbates social vulnerability.Under the political and economic force of urban spatial expansion,the imbalance of material and social development in urban fringe leads to social vulnerability.Social vulnerability of land-lost households is influenced by policy,community and themselves.As to policy,land expropriation policy deviates from the actual situation and demand of land-lost households,resulting in low compensation standard,single compensation and allocation mode,lack of vocational skills training,unsound social security system and so on.It objectively restricts the improvement of adaptive capacity of land-lost households,and is the key external cause of social vulnerability.At the community level,the unfair distribution of rights and resources,fracture of traditional social networks and poor support of the primary government have further aggravated social vulnerability of land-lost households.As to farmers themselves,the strong dependence of family income and employment on farmland for a long time results in their high sensitivity.Because of simple structure of livelihood,occupational instability and intergenerational transmission of vulnerable chains,ability to resist risks of land-lost households is seriously insufficient,which is the internal cause of social vulnerability.On the whole,social vulnerability has the obvious characteristics of scale effect.Degree and key influencing factors of social vulnerability are significant different at different scales,and with an interaction cross scales.5.Five types of adaptation modes for land-lost households are classified:short-term employment,rents from commercial house,self-employment,regular earnings and social security from government.The adaptive capacity of land-lost households under different adaptation modes is significantly different,which is derived from internal reasons of farmers themselves,expected judgments based on changes in external environment,and government support and system guarantee.The obstacle factors restricting adaptive capacity under different adaptation modes are lack of transformative capacity of land-lost households and low management capacity of the government,which reveals that there is a cooperative dilemma between spontaneous adaptation of land-lost households and planned adaptation of the government.On the one hand,the existing planned adaptation does not take into account spontaneous adaptation;on the other hand,due to incomplete information and externality of some adaptive behaviors,land-lost households have many limitations in the process of spontaneous adaptation to rapid urbanization.6.Compared to the static and controlled traditional management model,adaptive management model has the characteristics of dynamic,forward-looking and predictive,providing a new way for the urban fringe to deal with the disturbances and realize sustainable development.Because degree,key influencing factors and formation mechanism of social vulnerability at the two scales of subdistricts and land-lost households are quite different,the paper puts forward adaptive management countermeasures respectively,aiming to provide a scientific basis for orderly development of the urban fringe and promotion of adaptive capacity of land-lost households.